You are Seen

By: Missionary Team

“You are seen, you are seen, you are seen, you are like St. Veronica!” I was in training as a volunteer for a summer camp. It was our first week, and one of the activities that they had us do was team building. We shared things that we had done wrong or things we believed about ourselves with our respective communities (men with men and women with women). It was also a beautiful way to help our community to grow. Our community would then pray with us. While this was happening, we also had the opportunity to write anonymous little notes for each other.

At first, I was very uncomfortable during this exercise, but looking back, I see the gift that it was.

At one point, I went back to my seat and I found some notes that my team had written to me. I started to read them and was so struck by what these people saw in me. They hadn’t even known me a week and yet they saw so much good in me. One of the notes struck me hard. It said: “You are seen, you are seen, you are seen, you are like St. Veronica.”

I was floored.

I have struggled a lot with feeling invisible and not noticed. At a youth group, I used to sit alone during the night. I would join in the activities, but none of the other youth would talk to me; it was only ever the adults orthe helpers. This same thing happened at the camp my family would go to. They would have age groups and most people would never approach me unless they worked there. At work, they would sometimes forget about sending me on break, even though everyone else would go and my name was not marked off of the list.

Even at get-togethers with people I knew, I would sometimes be alone and would just wander around by myself and look at pictures on the wall or sit on the stairs. I would pretend that I wasn’t lonely, but I was.

These things may seem small, but they added up for me. I didn’t have many friends and sometimes felt unwanted by the people around me.

Receiving this note just struck me. These people had only known me for a few days and yet, one of them wrote that “I was seen”. How did they know that I felt overlooked? I had never shared it with anyone. Was it something they had just noticed or assumed I was going through or did they feel inspired by the Holy Spirit? I’m not sure. I read this note, and I started to cry.

One of the people leading the training saw me crying and came over to me. She asked if I was okay. I didn’t speak, but I handed her the note to read. She spoke encouraging words to me.

I’m not quite sure why this person compared me to St. Veronica on the note. What I do know is that God was telling me something that day. He had two people notice me that day: the one who wrote the note and the girl who came and spoke to me; not to mention the other people who wrote me notes that day. God was telling me that I am noticed and that what I do and who I am is important. More people notice me than they may let on; but more importantly, God notices me and what Ido 24/7

Your eyes saw me unformed; in your book, all are written down; my days were shaped before one came to be.” ~ Psalms 139: 16

God has continued to show me that I am seen in other events in my life. One such event happened in the fall of 2019. I was sitting with my fellow missionaries in the Chapel. Our leader looked at me and he said to me, “You have felt overlooked and invisible.” How did he know? I had never spoken of this to him or anyone else at Hard as Nails before. I was once again shocked. I don’t know if he could tell by the way that I acted or if it was something more than that...

Being here at Hard as Nails, God has shown me that I am not invisible. My team as well as the staff here notice when I am having a bad day and they will reach out to me. When I am having a good day, they are always there to make it even better.

God has used these different experiences to show me that I am not alone. I now know that I am not invisible, I AM SEEN!

“Lord, you have probed me, you know me; you know when I sit and when I stand, you understand my thoughts from afar. Even before a word is on my tongue, Lord, you know it all.” ~ Psalms 139: 1-2, 4.