Seeing with Spiritual Eyes

Have you checked out the Women in the Scriptures blog yet?  You really should.  She has such wonderful insights about the amazing women we can read about in the scriptures.  Just recently she posted about Hagar.  It was very interesting but what I loved the most was this:

Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael with water and provisions but eventually they run out of water. When Hagar and Ishmael finally collapse from dehydration it is apparent that she believes she and her son are going to die. She can do little more than sit down and weep. Her situation looks desperate and bleak. She has lost everything, her home, her husband, and her comfort and security. She had endured fourteen years with Abraham and Sarah now only to have all the promises God made her die. One can only imagine that she felt utterly and completely alone as she prepared to die. This time not only can she not see the well, she doesn't think there even is a well.

Yet as she weeps God again visits her and this time he "opens up her eyes and she saw a well of water" (Gen 21:19). The water has been just below her the whole time, but she couldn't see it. It is a beautiful way for God to remind Hagar that He is indeed the "God who sees me" and that, even when it appears that there are no blessings to be had anywhere, that He knows what blessings await her.

Hagar's story has brought me a lot of peace in my life. I've found that in some of my hardest moments, the times when I feel like there is not a blessing to be found anywhere, that I have found myself repeatedly praying to God calling Him, like Hagar did, 'The God who sees me." God is referred to by many different names throughout the Bible, yet I think that name is my personal favorite. It brings me so much peace and reminds me that there is a God who knows what I am suffering-- even when no one else does. A God who hears my prayers and who can see the blessings that I am blinded to, either because they are so abundant or because they are yet to be.

Hagar's story is also a testament that God sees the suffering of women everywhere. There is not a woman on this earth who cries out in pain, disappointment, fear, or despair whose voice He does not hear and whose trials He does not see. They may not know Him, or even believe in Him, but they are His daughters-- his precious daughters-- and He will never leave them alone. God has a plan for each and every one of children. Trusting in Him, and having faith that we can not comprehend or understand all that God does, makes any amount of frustration, sorrow, disappointment, or pain bearable.

Just because we can't see the well of water, doesn't mean it isn't there.

We just need to have our spiritual eyes opened and have faith that God sees.

Maybe it sounds dramatic, but I remember being in the middle of wanting to get pregnant and feeling like it would never happen.  In fact, it was hard to see the blessings I was experiencing at the moment because of it.  I would sometimes wonder if I would ever have the opportunity to be a mother and wondered why it seemed like everyone around me was blessed with exactly what I wanted, except for me.
I liked this gentle reminder that our Father in Heaven DOES see us and DOES know us and if we look, we will find the well of water in our life.