Helen Keller once said “I always knew you were there, I just never knew your name”. That vibe that we are not alone in this big ‘ol world is very real. That does not mean Mr. Loneliness never comes to visit.  He just confirms what we were feeling all along. Moreover, when we walk through a particularly long dark season in our personal lives which keeps hanging over us, we tend to feel even more alone and forgotten.  

Author Anne Lamott recounts an experience she had one night right after her abortion. From her bestseller Traveling Mercies:

“Several hours later, the blood stopped flowing, and I got into bed, shaky and sad and too wild to have another drink or take a sleeping pill.  I had a cigarette and turned off the light. After a while, as I lay there, I became aware of someone with me, hunkered down in the corner, and I just assumed it was my father, whose presence I had felt over the years when I was frightened and alone.  The feeling was so strong that I actually turned on the light for a moment to make sure no one was there-of course, there wasn’t. But after a while, in the dark again, I knew beyond any doubt that it was Jesus.”

God goes to incredible lengths to woo us to Himself no matter what we have done or where we have been.  Consider a slave-girl named Hagar. Since God did not seem to follow through with a promise in a timely fashion on Abraham’s watch for his wife Sarai to get pregnant, he took matters into his own hands.  He slept with a servant or a slave-girl named Hagar who later did become pregnant. But before that, like any lovers triangle Sarai started mistreating Hagar, so Hagar ran away to the wilderness. God (through an angel) found her close to a road beside a spring of water and blessed her with a promise and Hagar responded: “Thereafter, Hagar used another name to refer to the Lord, who had spoken to her.  She said, “You are the God who sees me.” (Genesis 16:13a NLT)

God saw Hagar and her specific situation.  God sees you and your specific situation. We are so clouded by our circumstances we forget that and all we want to do is run away. That’s why I love the verse: “Even though you are banished to the ends of the earth, the Lord your God will gather you from there and bring you back again.” (Deuteronomy 30:4 NLT)

Where would you and I be if the “God who sees us” did not woo us back to Himself!?” Lost. Alone…along some deserted road just like Hagar. So what do we do in the meantime?  It is simple and difficult. “We live by faith, not by sight”. (2 Corinthians 5:7 NIV) No, you cannot see how your situation will turn out right now.  Trust the God who sees “all of” YOU.

pictures courtesy of “Nelson & his Nikon”.

picture of man on road was taken from the cover of the book Surprised by Grace  by Tullian Tchividjian.