Genesis 16:13-So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.”

Generally speaking, it is in our places of dejection, disappointment, and failure that we experience a major crossroad between faith or unbelief.  Though these things happen to everyone, the need to naturally process the event can leave us either “paralyzed” in pondering over it, or moving in the direction of healing…
The story of Hagar gives a great picture of what it’s like to have desires to be accepted and loved, yet inevitably face rejection and humiliation.  Realizing what we hoped for became something we now grieve over.  Feeling like we are at the mercy of others decisions and seemingly forgotten about…
Hagar was the maidservant of Sarai, who chose her to bear the child of Abram (Abraham), “naturally” being too old to give him a son.  So Sarai devised her own plan to give Abraham a son through Hagar, instead of having faith in God’s promise to give him a son directly through her…
We rightly focus on Abraham and Sarah because they bore the promised seed Isaac, who Jesus would come from.  But Hagar is generally forgotten by Christians, but she wasn’t by God.  Though rejected, humiliated, and seemingly hopeless, God saw her.  Because the Lord revealed Himself to her, this experience re-directed her path of grief and pain into healing and restoration.
Many times we can look at such moments of rejection and humiliation and focus on the “participant(s)” that caused it, as Hagar did, which is natural.  But experiencing the Lord, and by faith acknowledging that He “sees us”, helps us forget the “participants of our pain” and experience the Lord Jesus Christ as greater.  Like Hagar in our greatest place of pain, we can “rename it” after the Lord who met us there! (Genesis 16:14, Genesis 41:51, Ruth 1:20)
Such a relationship creates a lifestyle of worship, seeing God as greater than our humiliation and places of deep pain, while able to forgive and neglect it from defining us.  Be encouraged that you have a Lord who “sees you”, continue in the direction of healing and restoration by pressing into Him (Philippians 3:13-15, Hebrews 12:11-13)-In His Love, Ld