We were made to be seen.
We long to be noticed.
Because if we are seen, then maybe we’ll be understood.
The loneliest times in my life have been filled with moments such as these.
When I sat around the circle in the living room at a baby shower, knowing I was the only one in the room who couldn’t share how my body changed during pregnancy or the length of my labor with my babies. My “pregnancies” looked so much different from the stories shared around that circle. Instead of maternity jeans and ginger pops, it looked more like mounds of paperwork, intrusive home studies, and the incredible ache of the wait. The unending contractions, yearning simply to be a mother year after year.
When my friends talk about their “normal” children that haven’t experienced trauma. And I often feel judged because I have to parent my children differently than they do. Trauma informed parenting doesn’t look quite the same. When I walk out of a restaurant with a screaming toddler, because the noise was too much, or the colors were too bright, or the seat was too itchy. When our days are filled with weighted compression vests and chewy necklaces and headphones and weighted blankets. When I’ve walked away from my buggy one too many times in a store because it was just time to go home.
It gets really lonely when I’m priming a feeding pump in the middle of the night, and I hold my breath when I check his sugar. When I find myself, once again, sitting in a waiting room, wanting desperately for the doctor to walk in to say everything is okay. When I’m still making formula everyday for my almost three year old, it’s hard to feel understood.
When the neighbor down the street has to wait at the door, because it’s easier for the once-orphan to push away, than to be brought near. When love feels uncomfortable and chaos is a friend. When rejection and manipulation feels much safer than “you belong.”
When a friend asks, “How have you been?” And I take a minute to decide if I have the emotional energy to tell the truth, or if it’s just easier to say, “I’m fine.” Because there is no way for her to possibly understand.
But Proverbs 14:10 says, “Don’t expect anyone else to fully understand both the bitterness and the joys of all you experience in your life.”
The thing is, the overwhelming truth, is that we were made to be seen by Him. To be noticed by Him. To be understood by Him. It’s His eyes that we truly long for.
It’s His glance that we truly need.
There’s this sneaky lie that we often believe, to have treasures laid up in heaven, one must evangelize and baptize, preach to the nations, share with the masses, the good news of Jesus. And there is so much beauty there.
But the hidden yes in the Kingdom, is just as weighty.
There are no shares or likes or applause or eyes on the foster mama sitting in the floor of the bathroom, with a son who still believes he’s an orphan. No one sees those hidden moments of your day, like changing that diaper, again. Or shuffling your exhausted feet down the hallway to comfort the toddler afraid in the night. There is no audience to applaud you for choosing to get low when that kid lashes out, but instead you respond in love. There aren’t many thank you’s for homemade breakfast, packed lunches, and dinners. No one says “good job,” for washing and folding laundry, or emptying the dishwasher. These middle moments, they aren’t often seen or applauded by the world.
Some of us will probably never find ourselves on stages or our names on the bottom of a book. Some of us will never have anyone share our story with the masses or ask us to be on a podcasts. There more than likely will never be a documentary or interview depicting our life with Jesus.
Maybe our assignment looks much differently. Like the stay at home mama, whose one job is to love her husband and babies like Jesus. Or the school teacher, who gets to teach love to her students. Or the business woman whose work is flavored with Heaven. Or the work at home mama working during naps and after bedtime. Or the missionary whose feet are stained red from the dirt, with sweat on her brow, but her heart and arms full of little orphans.
Those moments of hidden yes have become my favorite. Because in the midst of what can feel like loneliness, I’m finding I get the honor to lay my life down, to get low, and die. And let my yes to Him be the only thing that is seen.
