God Sees Me
EL ROI God sees me.
She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God (El) who sees me (Roi),” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” – Genesis 16:13
In December of 2011, God set me on this journey. I had no idea. I had not planned for my life to go down this road. Like every one else, I dreamed of a successful life, of family, kids, career, education, house, car, health… But within a short few months, it seemed like all was stripped away. It seemed like the whole world had abandoned me and I had nothing left. Those were dark days.
Divorce. Infidelity. Abandonment.
It all came crashing down. I was five months pregnant, holding the tiny hand of my toddler, watching our lives walk out on us. I had nowhere to go. No family. No job. Nothing. For days and weeks, thoughts and questions flooded my mind.
“What do I do now?”
“How am I – how are WE – going to survive?”
“Where can we go?”
These thoughts were like maggots infesting a dead corpse, and eventually, they consumed me. Having no food or sleep for a week, trying to deal with this infestation sent me to the ER, and then the mental ward where I was shamefully stripped, exposed, and examined. My clothes taken. My son taken. My dignity taken. I was left alone, drugged with medication that’s harmful for the unborn child.
By day two, the medication had no longer worked. My heart kept racing while my mind raced even faster to keep up. Tears ran until there was no more. Lights flooded my dilated pupils so that everything became unnaturally white. Pain weighed so heavily on me and my insides tangled into knots, making it difficult to breathe. Thoughts tormented me day and night.
“How is my son doing without me?”
“When will I see him again?”
“What is the medication doing to my unborn baby?”
My little self was lost inside a body and a mind that I no longer control, screaming for help, hoping for someone to find me and pull me out of there. In my attempts to manage my symptoms, I did everything I could to stay afloat. While pacing up and down the hall with a panic that won’t go away, a familiar book caught my attention – A Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren. I began reading it, in hopes that it would calm me down a bit.
I read and read until a poem stopped me in the disorientation:
You are who you are for a reason, you are part of an intricate plan. You are a precious and perfect unique design, called God’s special woman or man.
You look like you do for a reason. Our God made no mistake. He knit you together within the womb, you are just what He wanted to make.
The parents you have were the ones He chose, and no matter how you may feel, They were custom designed with God’s plan in mind. They bear the master’s seal.
No, that trauma you faced was not easy. And God wept that it hurt you so; But it was allowed to shape your heart so that into His likeness you’d grow.
You are who you are for a reason.
Russell Kelfer
The moment I read the fourth stanza, “God wept that it hurt you so,” I immediately sensed a presence with me – I wasn’t alone. He was there with me; He was hurting along with me.
I was lost and He found me.