I’ve always been invisible. I mean, people see me, but they look only at what I can provide for them. They’ve never seen the real me, if such a thing even exists anymore. I’m simply known as the Egyptian maidservant.

Ah, one day someone noticed me. “Hagar,” Sarai breathed out. The sound of my name on someone else’s lips, not just “slave girl” or “hey you.” It’d been so long I faintly recognized the sound, but my elation quickly turned to fear after I heard my mistress’s plan. God promised her and her husband a son that would turn into a great nation, but in her old age her arms still longed to hold her offspring. She did the unthinkable and gave me to her husband in an attempt to fulfill God’s plan.

I can’t quite explain why I began to despise Sarai once my belly swelled with life. Her jealousy was obvious.  I feared she’d somehow ruin the one thing that made people take notice of me. My spite got to her and she mistreated me. I feared for my safety, but more than that, for the health of my unborn child. Without thinking, I set out in a sprint. I ran and ran until my legs could no longer carry me another inch. I dropped to the ground, ready to burst into tears yet again. Why? Why doesn’t anyone care about me? Does anyone hear me?

Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next. The angel of the Lord found me lying near that spring.

“Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?” Genesis 16:8

His words echoed to the marrow of my soul. He saw me. Knew my name.

The angel told me to return to my mistress and submit to her. Ouch. Not Sarai. But he buffered his command by telling me he would increase my descendants so that they will be too numerous to count (Genesis 16:9). And he told me something I already knew; that I was with child. What I didn’t know until that moment was that my child–a boy–would be named Ishmael: God hears.

Who am I that the Lord would talk to me, a mere maidservant? He saw me. The invisible one. He heard of my misery. And he met me. Before returning to Sarai, I gave a name to the Lord who spoke to me. Everything within me cried out, “You are the God who sees me. I have now seen the One who sees me.” (Genesis 16:13)

Have you been there? If we’re honest, haven’t we all felt at some point or another that we are invisible, or worse yet, that God doesn’t hear our cries or even see us? Whether it be beside a spring in the desert, in the emergency room waiting area or in line at King Soopers, I hope we, too, can recognize that God is the One who sees us.

“For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.” 2 Chronicles 16:9