Encountering the God who sees

A short blog about God speaking to me through my infertility journey

Last month we took a family trip to Denver, Colorado, to visit my sister and her family who live out there.

And a really incredible thing happened…

Still in a fog of jet lag after landing on the Saturday evening, then waking up super early the next morning (because of the 7hrs time difference we were trying to navigate!) we downed a couple of strong coffees, had breakfast, rounded up all the family, and then headed to my sister’s church in Arvada.

The weirdest thing

But do you know what? The weirdest ‘God thing’ happened while I was there.

At the end of the church service, a total stranger walked up to me, introduced herself and bravely asked about me and if I had any kids.

Yes, ‘We have one son’ I replied. ‘Oh you do?’ she continued… ‘Because I felt like God was speaking to me about you during the service and showing me that there was perhaps some unfulfilled longings in your heart, in the area of motherhood or family. Or maybe some unresolved area of grief… ‘

Wow. I said, slightly taken aback. Yes both! I went onto explain that although I do have a son, I’ve also had multiple miscarriages, and that since then and we’ve not been able to have any more children.

She offered to pray for me right there and then, and continued to share how she felt very strongly that God wanted me to know that He sees and cares about my grief.

Isn’t that incredible?! I was literally 4581 miles away from home, in a completely different continent and time zone… and yet I heard almost exactly the same encouragement as I’d heard in my own church in Liverpool just a couple of weeks before we left.

The timing of all this hasn’t been something that has escaped by notice either - since that week marked the first anniversary of our most recent pregnancy loss as well. It was as if God was sending me the encouragement just when I needed it the most.

Encountering El Roi

It says in my favourite Psalm in the Bible, which is Psalm 139:

“If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.”

Sometimes it can feel like we’re just barely clinging onto God in our pain or our disappointment, can’t it?

But the truth in this passage, and that I encountered again in the midst of this experience, is that God sees every detail of our lives, and He holds us more tightly than we could know.

And to be honest, this is not a one-off theme either; the idea of God ‘seeing me’ is one that I have just kept on bumping into again and again along this fertility journey I’ve been on over the past few years. It’s been there in talks, in podcasts, in conversations with friends and strangers - and yes, even in divine encounters like this.

It’s been a recurring theme. So much so, that ‘El Roi’ - which is a Hebrew name for God referred to in the Bible, meaning ‘the God who sees me’ - is something that I now have tattooed on my wrist.

I carry this little phrase with me as a small physical reminder that despite all of those times where I’ve found myself wondering whether God really sees, or knows, or cares what is happening to me and my family - that yes, He is really does.

Hagar’s story

For anyone who is unfamiliar with the story of Hagar in the Bible, which is where this concept originates from, she was a young Egyptian slave girl who’s story unfolds in Genesis chapters 16-21.

To cut a long story short, she finds herself cruelly mistreated by Abraham and his wife Sarah, who was barren and enraged with jealousy towards her, after Hagar becomes pregnant in a sort of forced surrogacy for the couple. Eventually, she flees into the desert for her own safety and to spare the life of her baby.

So in short, Hagar was also a woman who felt overlooked by God in the midst of her struggles. And not only that, but she was a woman with no real rights, or status, no financial means, or personal agency in the culture and context that she was living in at all.

Her situation had left her destitute and had forced into hiding. But God. God met her there, in that wilderness space, and spoke to her, calling her by her name - and that single encounter of being seen by God changed everything for her (just as it has for me).

God saw Hagar not as a slave girl; but as a woman with intrinsic value, someone worth chasing after, and treating with great dignity and kindness.

In response to this encounter with the living God, Hagar refers to the Lord as ‘El Roi’ meaning ‘the One who sees me’ (Genesis 16:13). ‘I have now seen the One who sees me’ she says.

And incredibly, Hagar is the only person in the entire Bible who gets to personally name God in that way, as opposed to encountering a God who announces His name.

Final thoughts

I know that so many of us face shattered dreams in our own lives in different ways, and that at times we can also find ourselves asking, ‘Does God see me? Does He notice what’s happening here? Does He really care about my situation at all?’

These are certainly all questions I have found myself asking at many points over the past few years. But in Hagar’s story, perhaps more than any other place in scripture, I find the reassurance that, yes, God really does see.

After all, that same God who saw Hagar in her wilderness journey thousands of years ago, saw me in my journey to America last month too.

He is still El Roi – the One who sees all things, and holds all things together, and can be trusted with all things – even in those times when you feel a bit overlooked or unseen.