Kel Unscripted

Yesterday a book was delivered to my house that I didn’t order….

Amazon is no stranger to this household. Pretty sure that my son thought the delivery drivers were family the first few years of his life. And to this day, him and my husband both say, “What did you buy now?” if a delivery truck even just turns onto our street. But when they delivered a package yesterday, the answer to that question was “nothing”…but yet my husband was holding a package addressed to me in his hand.

When I opened it, I found this book: Prayers For Hard Seasons: 100 Honest Prayers Written For Real Life Problems by Lukas Brandt.

There was no card. No receipt. Just a book…with a silent message that someone “saw me.”

God has one personal name. YHWH (Yahweh or Jehovah)…. “I AM” (Exodus 3:14–15).

But there are over 100 descriptive names for God also recorded. Names such as:

Elohim — God, Mighty Creator (Genesis 1:1)
El Shaddai — God Almighty (Genesis 17:1)
Adonai — “Lord/Master” (Genesis 15:2).
Jehovah Jireh — “The LORD will provide” (Genesis 22:14).
Jehovah Rapha — “The LORD who heals” (Exodus 15:26).

My favorite has always been

El Roi — אֵל רֳאִי

“The God Who Sees Me”

When I opened the book, I knew that I was being seen. Not the smile you usually see on my face. Not the person who seems to have it all together, or at least will joke and laugh my way through the chaos when I don’t. But the woman who more often than not doesn’t feel like she has it all together. That feels overwhelmed. That feels afraid, guilty, unworthy, lacking. One who has cried so many tears. And one who feels exhausted trying just to stay one step ahead, or ready to dive and catch the other shoe before it drops.

To be “seen” is someone also seeing the parts that don’t show….

The title of the book is Prayers For Hard Seasons.

The title makes me pause just a little. But what if a “season” has been almost 8 years…..at what point does it stop being a season? Seasons end…but this…no, it doesn’t feel like a season because I have started to question, will it end?

If it is a season, it’s definitely winter. I hate winter.

The last few weeks has been a winter storm….a blizzard.

And that is where I find myself struggling. And in that struggle, someone saw me this week.

God sees me daily…

El Roi

In Genesis 16:13, when Hagar is alone, pregnant, mistreated, and essentially pushed into the wilderness, God meets her there, speaks to her, and promises that He sees what is happening to her.

Hagar responds by calling Him El Roi—the God who sees me.

God didn’t just see Hagar’s circumstances. He saw Hagar.

He saw:

• her pain
• her fear
• her loneliness
• what had been done to her
• what she couldn’t see coming
• and the child she was carrying

Years later, when again Hagar found herself in the wilderness, this time with a child who she thought would die, He saw her again and continued to provide for her.

El Roi was my favorite name of God before I studied the origin of it. “The God who sees me” just always felt comforting. But I’m understanding now that there potentially is a deeper reason why the name resonated and gave peace to my heart.

Before opening the book, I said a prayer asking that God would send His Holy Spirit to reveal what I needed from it. You don’t have a book randomly show up at your door without there being a purpose. So I asked God to direct me to the section that He had for me (because who actually starts a book at page 1?!?!).

So I closed my eyes and opened the book.

Chapter 8 — When Everything Feels Out of Control

We interrupt this serious blog moment for some breaking news…

The mystery has been solved.

Literally as I am typing this, I just found out that my cousin is the one who sent it to me. The “cousin” who my heart says is the sister that I never asked for (like when I was little and she would have me hide while playing hide and seek and then go home leaving me hiding) but God knew I needed.

And this is the perfect example…I hadn’t said a word that I’ve felt like I’m drowning. But somehow she knew.

It’s funny to me that I found out who sent me the book literally as I typed out the name of the chapter.

“When Everything Feels Out of Control.”

Getting the answer to my question of who sent it, in the midst of life feeling out of control and questioning the answers to life’s questions, felt like a response to my heart saying, “But I’m in control….I have the answers.”

I guess it’s time that I let you in on the biggest secret that I carry. The thing that haunts me daily. The thing that so many people have told me, “It’s not your fault,” and I smile and agree, but inside I know that’s not what I actually believe.

I failed my son….

I failed as a Mom…

I didn’t protect him…

It was my wrong choices. I didn’t react fast enough. I was too trusting.

And the secret is…

I can’t forgive myself.

Let me be very clear before starting the explanation. I’m not saying that my feelings are a secret to God. We’ve had so many conversations about it. And I am very thankful that God allows me the space for honesty because there have been times that I’ve been mad at Him…and I’ve told Him so.

I’ve cried to Him. I’ve worshiped Him. I’ve asked Him to be with us. And I am so confident that He has been here all along, and I know without a doubt that He’s working.

But there are days it just feels too much…

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose” — Romans 8:28

I’ve seen Him.

If you’ve read my homepage, you would have seen that I said that I have a testimony…or that I’m currently in one. And I believe that.

But that doesn’t mean that there won’t be days where life feels hard. That God might feel far away even if you feel His presence on your skin. And it doesn’t mean that even though you know the relationship that you have with Christ, that you won’t struggle.

It’s what you do with the struggle that either allows God to work in your life, the situation, and your heart.

Do you hand it over to God, or do you use it as gasoline to a flame?

I’m currently fueling a bonfire.

Another confession….

I never wanted kids. I never liked kids, and no way was I ever going to have any of my own.

If you don’t believe that statement, I used to hiss at kids in stores if they were whining and crying.

Picture this…

Standing in a store checkout line and the kid in front of you is throwing a tantrum, whining or pouting during an “I want, I want, I want” rant.

When the mom’s back is turned, you make eye contact with the kid and softly hiss while baring just enough teeth to add a visual component.

It has a 99.2% success rate for an instant freezing response and everything goes quiet.

Warning: It also has a 100% risk of a black eye if ever caught by an angry mother.

But that was (or still is) me.

So when I suddenly wanted a baby, not only did I surprise myself, I shocked everyone in my life.

I had an easy pregnancy. I got sick just one time, and it was my own fault because for some odd reason I thought the peanut butter burger on the menu actually sounded good.

It wasn’t until 35.5 weeks in that I started having trouble. My sweet boy was born at 36 weeks because I had preeclampsia.

I can’t explain why when I typed that last sentence I had a knot of guilt form in my stomach.

I definitely didn’t have control of that at all. Nothing to feel guilty over. Maybe it’s just a general response in how I feel about myself as a mom. Or anticipation for what I know is inevitably being written a few paragraphs from now.

I love that God allows women to essentially forget the pain of labor. It’s one of life’s weirdest phenomena, but you’ll hear every mom say it.

And there is no greater feeling than when they place that baby onto your stomach the second that it is born.

You’ve carried this baby, you’ve known this baby, and he or she knows you.

My favorite motherhood quote is, “No one else will ever know the depth of my love for you. After all, you’re the only one that knows the sound of my heart from the inside.”

You feel that immediate love, and there is a bond just between you and that baby that no one else will ever understand.

But just a few hours later would be the first time I felt helpless as a mom.

I delivered early because of preeclampsia. So to keep my blood pressure down, I was given IV magnesium sulfate, and even after I gave birth, that IV continued to run to keep my vital signs stable.

But over the course of a few hours after giving birth, my body stopped working because I was essentially being overdosed on the medication.

I went from being able to get up and walk to practically paralyzed in my hospital bed.

They had called the on-call doctor (of course my OBGYN was on vacation that week), who just kept telling them that I would be fine until she saw me at some point the next morning.

But by the next morning, I couldn’t stand, and I was starting to lose the use of my arms.

The arms that wanted to hold my new baby.

And I couldn’t.

And I was okay with it until my mother-in-law, who I did not have a good relationship with, showed up and took him from me.

That moment haunts me to this day.

I just laid there, watching her hold him, change his diaper. All of the things I should have been doing and couldn’t.

But this woman, who had never been kind to me, who felt like such a threat and sounded every alarm in me, had my baby and I couldn’t do anything about it.

I felt like a prisoner in my own body, and inside I was silently screaming.

I think that exact moment ultimately would create the mother I would become.

The mom who never wanted to feel out of control or helpless ever again. That would always have the ability to protect her child if needed.

I know that moment was when my postpartum depression and anxiety started. I just didn’t know what it was at the time.

I resented everyone except my own mom.

My irrational state of mind couldn’t even process why my husband was being a proud dad and not guarding the door, blocking entry.

I remember being in the bathroom (another trauma all women after birth experience) when a group of family members came up to the hospital.  And for the second time in 24 hours, I found myself feeling helpless again.

I was stuck on the toilet, and they were all out there…holding my baby.

All I could do was hold a towel up to my face and scream into it.

I knew I was not being rational, but I couldn’t help it. But I also couldn’t kick everyone out either.

But after we got home, I did kick everyone out.

I became obsessed with my child. I couldn’t be away from him, and I didn’t want anyone near him.

I sent out messages and Facebook posts letting everyone know that we were not up for visitors and would let everyone know when we would be.

Not that I ever was ready.

It got so bad that I became irrationally afraid of the dark. The anxiety was terrible. The irrational fears were terrible.

And every bit of what I felt created the narrative that I had to protect my child and that it was solely my job….

The day I went back to work after maternity leave, I called my OBGYN from the steps of our office and told them I thought I was going to die.

And I wasn’t exaggerating.

That was the day I got help for my postpartum depression and anxiety.

But medication didn’t change the woman who felt she needed to survive by controlling situations and keeping the world from hurting her baby or worse…taking him from her.

But three years later, I failed to do that…

It is no surprise that being a working mom wasn’t easy for me. I had to trust another person when I wasn’t with him.

That wasn’t natural for me, and we went through multiple transitions over the first few years.

When he was two, we finally transitioned from private caregivers to a daycare setting.

Him and I both cried every day at drop-off. But eventually we both found our brave faces each morning.

On November 1st of the year he turned 3, he moved into the 3-year-old classroom and the teachers that I had grown somewhat comfortable with.

And everything about that head teacher set off alarms in my brain.

Yes, I was being judgy. But you could look at her and see that she was old and crotchety, and I knew that wasn’t the fit for my little guy who always was laughing and smiling.

Potty training was not going well for us, and what we later found out to be a milk insensitivity made matters even worse.

So he went into that 3-year-old class wearing diapers.

A fact that really frustrated the new teacher.

And it frustrated her to the point it led her to intentionally neglect him in a way that caused him pain.

I got to school to pick him up from school, and when I walked into the classroom, I didn’t see him anywhere.

When the teacher saw me, she came charging towards me.

I can still picture it almost as if it is in slow motion. Like a bull coming straight towards me.

She was angry and said, “He had 8 bowel movements today that I had to change, and I finally told him that he was going to stay in the bathroom until he used the toilet.”

The reason I didn’t see him in the classroom was because he was in the bathroom.

I found him lying on his belly over the toilet seat as if it was his only toy.

No one will describe me as quiet, but at that moment I was.

I wordlessly picked him up and as quickly as I could exited the building.

I didn’t cry, though, until I got home and saw that his bottom had a rash that was bleeding, where the stool still in his diaper had actually melted his skin.

Inner voice: I wasn’t there to protect him. It’s my fault.

I will later look back at that moment as my biggest regret as a mother.

I left him there.

I didn’t pull him out immediately. Instead, I went to the directors of the facility, who I thought had mine and his best interests, to fix the problem.

And I kept him there…

He finally figured out potty training.

The teacher who hated and was mean to me for weeks, maybe even months, finally seemed to soften a little.

Everything had seemed to settle into a quiet routine…

Then the world crashed in around me….

He stopped being potty trained overnight. He became terrified of toilets and bathrooms, followed by violent outbursts and tantrums at school.

No one knew why there was a sudden change.

When I met with the school, they told me it was my fault. It was obviously my parenting. Possibly psychiatric. But probably both.

And I believed them.

I believed them that it was my fault because that’s what they wanted me to believe.

That’s why I was numb and silent when I would enter the school and find them restraining him from outbursts in ways that were unacceptable.

The image of the assistant director sitting in a chair, shoving him onto the ground face-first as he laid on his stomach, or the day he had been put in a padded room with the lights off, haunts me to this day.

But still, I kept him there.

I continued to take him when he was trying to tell me something was wrong.

I believed the directors and school psychologist who were saying I was a bad parent.

I continued to allow them to physically abuse him and call it safely restraining him for his protection.

I didn’t protect him.

Even when his outbursts got worse, I didn’t understand his cues that he needed me.

And he did need me.

Because finally, one day he looked at me and said, “D******** touched my wee wee.”

That whole time, his innocent mind knew something felt wrong and he didn’t know how to express it.

So he expressed it the only way he knew how.

He learned the fight in fight or flight.

And it would end up being the way his body learned how to cope when he would feel overwhelmed.

The few weeks after that were like a blur.

I did the only thing I knew to do.

I broke into a million pieces.

But I used those feelings to push through even harder.

I reached out to ODJFS and filed a complaint against the facility, who later responded that they found all of my complaints justifiable, and the facility was cited, including a citation because when they arrived they found that there was no teacher in the classroom and seven kids were in there completely unsupervised.

I found a babysitter to come to our home and watch him.

Home just felt safer.

That girl still holds such a special place in my heart today.

When we thought the time was right, we found him a new daycare.

He had been okay, so I thought he was ready.

But the thing with trauma is that places can trigger memories.

And even though he was safe, his body didn’t feel safe, and we found ourselves again dealing with violent tantrums.

And this time, for the protection of himself, the teachers, and the other students, we were told he couldn’t return.

This time, the violent tantrums weren’t just at school.

They were starting to happen at home too.

It was terrifying.

I found myself exhausted, bruised, and heartbroken.

We had been referred by Children’s Hospital to a facility that provided counseling for kids.

When we were told he could not return to the daycare, the counselor suggested that we enroll him into their program for kids who had aggressive behaviors and were not successful in a school setting…

And once again, I made a decision that I’ll forever regret.

We had been told about their strategies for dealing with aggressive behaviors.

As part of our counseling sessions, we had been educated on their technique that when a child is being aggressive, you relocate them to a corner and you limit their space and block them using your body until they calm down.

It hadn’t really worked for us, but they made their school setting with that daily reinforcement sound “healing.”

Another memory that haunts me are the small closets they had throughout the facility that were used to enforce their method.

But what haunts me even more are the visual images that I hold of the injuries he sustained while being forced in those rooms.

We had to sign a paper when he was enrolled that we would not interfere, prevent, or complain about anything that happened in those rooms, including injuries.

And if doing so, he would be dismissed from the program.

I even had to stand by and watch the day his counselor took him from my arms because she didn’t like something he did at pick-up and watch her do that to my child.

I was having a silent nervous breakdown day after day.

But the day I got a call from the school that he had gotten a busted and bloodied mouth was the day I went and got him and never took him back.

Their goal was to break kids into submission.

Not heal them.

And for us, we left that experience far worse than we started because he had learned how to fight.

He fought because he was being forced into a corner in a tiny room, which possibly reminded him of the tiny bathroom where we suspect was where he was being inappropriately touched at the beginning of his trauma.

Both of which triggered a fight-or-flight response.

He physically fought someone restraining him.

And once again, he was getting hurt by an adult.

And on top of that, he witnessed and started new behaviors by watching other kids, including spitting, biting, and verbal aggression.

I hadn’t left him there, but I had put him there.

I was the one that said yes.

And once again, I had made the wrong decision.

It was my fault.

I think I lost a piece of myself the day I got the call that he had been hurt to that degree in that closet.

I was hysterical. I was broken.

I had experienced too much, and I just couldn’t process anything.

I was so out of touch with reality as I drove down there that I didn’t even react when, at the same time, my mom called me to tell me that her childhood best friend had been killed in a car accident.

A woman that I also dearly loved.

I honestly don’t remember what I said to my mom about the death of her friend.

I know it wasn’t what I needed to say to her…the support I should have given her.

I just remember hysterically crying, driving down the highway, and selfishly adding my pain on top of her own.

Just another failure that I still struggle with.

But I was just…gone.

As I’m crawling through this timeline, I don’t think I can tell you that I prayed during it.

Maybe I did.

But not in a way that I remember.

And I definitely don’t remember God showing up big in those moments.

The type of big that would have just fixed everything immediately.

It’s just sitting here now that I can see Him, now that I’m allowing myself to think about it and look for Him in the small details.

He wasn’t absent.

But I didn’t really ask for help either.

If I had, maybe He would have changed some parts of the story…maybe He wouldn’t have.

Regardless, though, He was and always would be consistent within it.

Like I said earlier, Romans 8:28 says:

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are called according to His purpose”

But Scripture also says:

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” — 2 Corinthians 12:9

And:

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” — Psalms 46:1

It was after that, though, that I remember starting to pray.

And I have so many stories to tell you about how God has shown up.

Dragonflies are just a snippet of my experience of God’s presence and grace.

I’m saving them for the next blog.

First, I needed to get through the beginning.

And when you hear those stories, you’re going to question why I said I feel like my season is still a harsh winter.

Why a chapter about things feeling out of control would be something the Holy Spirit used to speak to me.

Why I still struggle with my feelings that I’ve failed and everything is my fault.

Why some nights my tears are the only prayers I can pray…

Because I’m still the same mom that laid in the hospital bed almost 11 years ago feeling helpless.

The one who decided that day that she would never allow herself to feel that out of control when it came to her child ever again.

But until I lay it all down at the feet of Jesus, I can never feel the peace that I need.

And I’d be lying to you if I told you that I have.

We’ve walked this path for the last 8 years.

Through the diagnosis of PTSD.

Through the diagnosis of ADHD, which only causes him to struggle with emotional regulation more.

Through a phone call to the emergency behavioral health hotline.

Through 2 behavioral ER visits.

Through bad days, weeks, and even months that somehow line up with the exact dates of the trauma he experienced when he was three. Dates he doesn’t consciously remember, but somehow, deep down, his body does. His body remembers that these were bad days. And year after year, they come back around. November 1st… Christmas through New Year’s… Easter… May through June… late August into September…

Today…

Through the nights that I equally failed to regulate my emotions and then cried myself to sleep with guilt that smothered me.

Through homework that feels so overwhelming that it triggers his fight-or-flight response.

The insecurity around other kids.

The days when we’ve went such a long stretch without any problems and right as I start to feel comfortable something happens…

The day he started an antidepressant/anti-anxiety medication and I texted a friend and said, “Tell me I’m not a failure.”

And while we’ve walked this path together as a family, I’ve traveled and continue to travel it while carrying the weight of “it’s all my fault” on my back.

And I feel the weight dragging me down every time I try to control a situation.

Every time I feel like I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop so that I can catch it.

When the path gets harder to navigate because what I thought was protection actually was a hindrance.

The weight gets heavy.

The weight I”m choosing to pick up and carry.

And that’s when I start to feel like I’m drowning…

I bought this painting years ago, right around the time all of this started, of Jesus extending his hand into the water.

It hangs beside my bed.

I’ve always loved how looking at it makes me feel.

Because it represents the feeling of being seen…and rescued.

I need that hand some days so badly.

El Roi — The God Who Sees Me

So while my story isn’t exactly like Hagar’s, her and I both have found ourselves in the wilderness.

Both loving our child.

Both hiding.

Both needing to be seen….

But something stuck out to me tonight as I dove deeper into her story.

At first, I assumed the message of this blog was just to start at the beginning of my testimony.

That it would flow into a crescendo where I talked about trusting God with the hard things.

Not to carry guilt that is not yours to carry.

That life is hard but God is faithful.

I was going to tie in to the fact that when God first saw Hagar in the wilderness, she was told to go back to her mistress and she did…

Hagar listened to God, and I need to also.

But there I go again, trying to control the ending as per usual.

But some verses I read just hit a bit different tonight, and I feel God changing direction on where this is going…

So if my words suddenly seem jumbled, it’s because I’m taking you along with me as I process what I’m reading in real time.

But maybe mine and Hagar’s story is more alike than I think.

And God’s message might possibly be the same.

God didn’t find Hagar in the wilderness just one time…

He actually found her there twice.

So God is willing to go back to the same place if needed…if that’s where you are.

In chapter 21, Hagar and Ishmael had been sent away.

Verse 14 says:

“Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.”

So I guess we both felt the heaviness of something on our back..

15 — When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes.

16 — Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there she began to sob.

She cried over her son too.

She felt responsible and couldn’t protect him.

All the things I just poured my heart out about.

But then Scripture says this….

17 — God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there.”

18 — “Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”

19 — Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

20a — God was with the boy as he grew up…

Have you ever just read something in the Bible that seemed to speak to you in a way that you didn’t expect?

I just had that moment.

One thing that didn’t surprise me, but something else that did.

I shouldn’t need the reminder that God tells me not to be afraid, and that God hears.

If He sees me, as I’ve said all throughout this, of course He hears also.

And of course God is with us.

I’m thankful that when I forget, that God gives me those gentle reminders.

But something else stuck out to me when it hasn’t before.

After the angel of God told Hagar not to be afraid and that God heard the boy crying, she was told to “lift the boy up and take him by the hand.”

It goes on to say, “so she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.”

When she laid the boy down, admitting that she had done all she could do, God didn’t expect her to stop caring for him after He took over.

God provided the direction.

He provided the well of water.

But He instructed Hagar to “lift him up and take him by the hand.”

She was the one that filled the skin with water and gave Ishmael a drink.

He still let her be a mom.

And I think it’s because God saw her again.

The first time He met her in the wilderness, she was newly pregnant.

But God knew that the moment she gave birth, she was a different person.

He designed her that way.

He understood the love she felt.

The protectiveness she felt.

And possibly even the sadness.

Because even then He knew that someday His Son would be in a moment near death as He watched.

He understood that she was feeling afraid, guilty, and not enough in that moment because He created her and He intimately knew her.

So He gave her that moment.

God could have miraculously filled the skin with water Himself.

He could have taken their thirst away.

But instead He heard Hagar’s cries, which I believe the Holy Spirit communicates as prayers, and He simply entered into the story and gave her the resources she needed.

Maybe all this time that I admittedly have struggled to surrender my son to God was because deep down I have been afraid that when I did, I would feel even more lacking as a mother.

Or even worse…that someone was taking him away from me again.

Is it possible to be jealous of God and not want to share with even Him?

That’s an uncomfortable thought.

Have I forgotten that my son….is His son.  Just like I am His daughter. 

I never considered the fact that I am a mother because God chose me to be his mom.

And God isn’t going to take the role He gave me away if I rely on Him on how to care for him.

He will hear the cries.

He will provide.

And He will be with him as he grows.

But I’ll always be his Mom because He chose me to be.

There are just times I’m going to need some help…

And that time might just be now.

Confession: I physically wrote this blog a week ago, and I just couldn’t seem to publish it.

Partly because reliving trauma is hard. Admitting your feelings about that trauma is hard. Wanting to do what God is telling you when you don’t know why is hard.

And this week…it was hard.

I can attach bad days to past dates. Something can happen, or there is an overall change, and I can pull out my notes and see the same date year after year and trace it back to something that happened years ago.

Knowing that allows you to stiffen a little, just like you’re preparing for a punch to the gut.

But the last few years, like clockwork, we’ve struggled with the first few weeks of September, and I’ve not figured out why.

I wrote this blog on a Saturday, and on Sunday there was a shift in our family dynamics.

I do believe that whenever you’re doing something that God has called you to do, the devil attacks harder.

I should have hit publish the second I finished because I feel like I’ve been in the boxing ring with the devil all week, and I’m so close to a knockout that it’s kept me from feeling like I could.

Almost like hitting publish was going to be the final blow.

That whatever emotions I had left to keep fighting would finally be exhausted, and I’m going to go down…

And no, I haven’t done anything that I feel like God had me write last week.

And I think I know why.

That while The God Who Sees Me can be a comforting thought…it can also be a scary one.

Because I didn’t want God to see me this week.

I didn’t want Him to see me in my struggle because I haven’t been the best version of myself.

In fact, I’ve been an ugly version of myself.

And I think that ugly version of myself comes from a much deeper place than just being human.

I really think it comes from guilt.

That I work so hard to try and fix everything that when things fall apart and tantrums happen, homework doesn’t get done because the overwhelm caused a meltdown, failing grades, new ADHD medication, illness…I blame myself.

And that self-blame, or the need to carry it all, becomes a…visceral cry.

And when I reach that point, I feel like a hypocrite, and it makes me want to hide from God.

The God Who Sees Me.

I had a thought this evening as I was preparing myself to finally hit the publish button.

I’ve sat and compared myself to Hagar.

And on Saturday, I felt God nudging me toward the Scriptures that showed how He rescued her but still allowed her to care for her son.

But tonight, the Scripture popped into my head, and a new question about Hagar came to mind.

In the second part of Hagar’s story, after she was sent away, Genesis 21:16 says:

“Then she went off and sat down a bowshot away, for she thought, ‘I cannot watch the boy die.’ And she sat there, and she began to sob.”

I wonder what she cried about.

Did she cry because she thought her child was going to die?

Did she cry because she was back in the wilderness after God had already moved her out of it once before?

Was she tired of going back there?

Was she upset with herself?

Did she blame herself?

Did she feel resentful or cheated about the time she lost with her son?

Had she been short-tempered…maybe even with her son?

Was she angry?

Afraid?

Did those feelings create a version of herself that she didn’t like and that she didn’t want God to see?

Because He did see.

Those Scriptures say that God heard the boy’s cries…but He obviously heard hers too.

He saw her again.

He rescued her again.

Even when she found herself not at her best.

It’s time I hit publish….

The worship song I Speak Jesus by Charity Gale has been on repeat lately. And as I start to finally wind this down, I want the words to speak to anyone who might be struggling—to let them give you power like they give me.

Jesus, I speak your Name over this blog post…

Yes, my testimony surrounding what I shared tonight is ultimately what I feel God told me to write years ago.

And while I hope that God uses me, my story, and this blog to reach as many people as possible, I think it’s quite possible that this specific blog was just for me and me alone.

He knew that it would make me stop long enough so that He could have a hard conversation with me that I needed.

That I would admit things I haven’t admitted out loud before.

That I would start to process things that I haven’t allowed myself to process.

That I would feel seen and understood in a way that I can start forgiving myself for something that I don’t need forgiveness for.

And even if I did, God would have already done so.

Every story, every testimony has a beginning.

This was mine.

And it was hard to share.

It was hard to go back to those places in my mind.

And I’m not sure that I remember it all.

I have poor coping skills where bad memories disappear because I block them out.

But I couldn’t tell all the ways I’ve seen God in my story without starting at the beginning.

And as I start to recall His presence this question is pressing on my heart.

What if God wants to be seen as much as Hagar did, and I want to be?

What if El Roi wants to call me:

“Kelley — my child who sees Me.”

Stay tuned for the good part when God enters the story…or at least when I opened my eyes to see Him.