I See You

My youngest daughter has recently started her first teaching job. She is at work at around 7.45 in the morning and has not (yet) got home before 6.30 in the evening, and when she gets in she continues preparing for the following day. I know she’s on a steep learning curve, and things will settle over time, but around half her “hours” at the moment are hidden from the view of her pupils, who only see her from 9 til 3.

I wonder if you ever feel unseen? I suspect most of us have “been there” at one time or another- whether it’s running a household as well as holding down a job, or staying up late to complete something to the right standard, or spending hours looking for exactly the “right” gift which then seems to be taken for granted!  When we have spent all the energy we have, and then someone (in all innocence) asks us “Could you just….” Or “Oh, I thought you were going to…” we can feel squeezed, or unappreciated. And, if you’re anything like me, that can make your inner temperature rise pretty sharply, leading to either a quiet bit of seething, or some sharp words.

The same sense of being unseen can arise with our feelings- what shows on the top can just be the tip of an iceberg. We get through the day, but we are struggling with sadness, fear or disappointment. We hold it together at a social occasion but maybe we are feeling that we don’t fit, and the effort it takes just to hold up the end of a conversation goes un-noticed by everyone else. As we move into Autumn and towards the festive Season, those feelings of being unseen, or being on the edge, can be amplified.

The Bible tells us that God knows exactly how we feel, before we even know it ourselves-and we can be certain that God sees all the work we do- practical and emotional, for our families, friends and communities

“O Lord, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways. Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether…..

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb." (from Psalm 139)

We may feel that our efforts, or our struggles, go unseen by other people, but the Lord sees all of it. When we take the time to look carefully at our neighbours, maybe we will see it too. Perhaps that unhelpful person at the call centre is struggling to pay the rent. Perhaps the unfriendly parent at the school gate has been sleep deprived for the last year. Perhaps the short tempered neighbour is living with chronic pain or bereavement.

We can’t see or know everything, but we can seek to look at other people with something of God’s compassion and understanding. So- this autumn- know that you are seen and loved by God, and maybe try to do some “seeing” of your neighbours too.

Every Blessing

Revd Kalantha