Sometimes life doesn’t go as planned. But we can have faith that God sees us. He’s there.
The boys and I were preparing our school room. We always begin our homeschool lessons the Tuesday after Labor Day.
“Where should I put this?” eight-year-old Isaiah asked. He grinned and the held teacher’s manual to his new math book. I directed him to a shelf and thought about our very first day of homeschool–15 years ago. Our older sons, then-little Logan and Grant, helped prepare our classroom. We were excited. Hopeful. Reaching for good things.
But on that first day, I miscarried a baby we’d prayed for, and the beginning of our home school lifestyle was nothing like we’d planned.
Every year I think back to those days. There was loss. Pain. Grief. A deep, deep hurt. But when my thoughts drive me back to that beginning and end, what I remember the most was God’s Presence. I remember the strength and comfort of His love.
God is fully present when life does not go as planned.
I remember the Lord speaking, with gentle comfort and authority, through His Word. I remember the way He worked through the compassionate hearts and hands of our family of friends. I remember arms that longed to hold but also the strong grace of being held. Thinking back, it was a time in life when I was keenly aware of where I was and where God was. And He was with me.
I sometimes think of Hagar, Sarah’s maidservant, dismissed to the desert. There was no water, and she could only listen to her son’s cries. But the Lord heard those cries, too. He saw Hagar and Ishmael and he reached into their circumstance (the story is in Genesis 21) with provision and grace.
It was the second time Hagar had wept in the desert. When an angel of the Lord found her the first time, she’d said “You are the God who sees me.”
El Roi.
God saw that Egyptian maidservant’s pain, and He sees us in our strife, too. He sees every tear. Every ache. And His compassion comes close. His comfort is real. The Lord sees us, and we will not struggle alone.
“How does this look, Mom?” ten-year-old Gabriel asked. A dozen sharp, pointy-lead pencils fanned out from a cup. He plunked it on his desk.
“Great,” I said. “Looks like you’re ready.”
Gabe nodded.
The school year, like life, stretches ahead of us. We can do our best to plan and prepare, but we can never know for sure how things will go. Sometimes the things we learn are not what we’d expected.
Like the year we learned about God’s Presence in new ways.
Faith means knowing we’re not alone.
God sees every circumstance, and He’s there.
