Unseen: The Gift of Being Hidden in a World that Loves to be Noticed

In the last couple of years, Sara Hagerty has become one of my favorite bloggers. She doesn’t write daily, but when she does share a post its always something I have to sit down and chew on for a bit. No skim reading because its always deep at the same time as practical, challenging while it is encouraging. She writes at sarahagerty.net.

Each month Sarah shares a list of daily adorations – attributes of God from His own Word. I love to post the list, and then follow the beautiful photos that accompany each adoration she posts on Instagram. It gives me one more slice of God’s Word in a busy day. There have been seasons of my life where mulling on these daily adorations was my whole quiet time with God. Reading, studying and applying that one verse and characteristic of God to my life right now, today.

Sara’s first book, Every Bitter Thing is Sweet, tells the story of her journey with infertility and adoption, and how she met God in a new way through that process. Though I haven’t been on either of those particular journeys personally, her story was challenging and beautifully shared. Since completing that book, I have been anticipating the release of a second book (not a sequel). This week it finally arrived.

Unseen: The Gift of Being Hidden in a World that Loves to be Noticed puts words to what I’ve been feeling in my motherhood journey these last few years. So it’s not necessarily telling me anything new, but it is meeting me right here in this spot with God’s Word.

So many times, for the last 7+ years, my days have consisted of dishes, laundry, sweeping the crumbs, wiping the noses, changing the diapers, falling into bed exhausted only to do it all again the next day. Many times I complained to my husband that I was lonely, or isolated, or that no one knew exactly what I was going through. But the truth is…God knew. He saw, He understood, He walked that road with me.

More recently, as I have exited the “baby” season to wade knee deep in homeschooling and church planting, I have again felt “unseen.” Even insignificant. After all, how many times did I give that instruction only to find that my child ignored me, didn’t pay attention to me, or just plain disobeyed me? I was trying to find my significance and worth in the things I was doing instead of the One who was watching me. I was working and serving and being productive (sometimes), but I still felt alone and unseen.

In this book, Sara delves into the fact that we crave to be seen and noticed. We were designed for it. But we have to go through the winter times when our roots are unseen and our blossoms are gone in order to bloom more fully and grow larger in the spring. Sometimes it is in the unseen moments that we find we are really seen by the most important One (who has been watching us all along). And in those times, if we press into Him, we find a deeper more significant relationship with our Creator. In the unseen moments we can worship more completely. In the times when the world doesn’t notice a thing we are doing, we grow more than we ever could in the limelight.

This also speaks to my battle with social media. It’s one of those things I have a hard time controlling sometimes. I want to post things and share what I’m doing and see what people say in response. But in the end, 27 likes on my picture of a beautiful dinner isn’t really important. But making that beautiful dinner for my family can be an act of worship if the work is met with the right attitude and if I give God the glory for my ability to make it. Sometimes I pull away from social media…maybe because I have been feeling insignificant and unseen already, and so I don’t really want anyone else to know. But those times have been some of the best months I have walked with my Savior.

I have not completely read this book yet. I have to take it slowly and digest it. But the chapters I have read are very marked up as the Lord has used Sara’s words and her own journey of “unseenness” to challenge my heart in this matter.