Sometimes the house is quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the soft tapping of keys beneath my fingers. The cursor blinks on the screen like a pulse, steady and patient, waiting for words that will not come. I wonder if any of it matters, these late nights spent reaching for meaning, the stories I pour out from the quiet corners of my heart that may never be heard. I wonder if the work is making a difference, or if it is just slipping into the wide silence of the world unnoticed.

There are moments when doubt lingers nearby, quiet but persistent. It makes me question whether my story is big enough to matter, whether the things I have lived through hold any weight for anyone else.

And yet, I think of Hagar. A woman who ran into the desert believing she had been cast aside. She was carrying more than her son that day; she carried shame, rejection, and a lifetime of feeling like an afterthought. She did not have a plan or a voice; she only had tears. But in that wilderness, when the world had turned away, God met her there. He did not just speak to her; He saw her.

Hagar named Him El Roi, “the God who sees me.” Not the God who fixed everything right away, but the One who made her feel visible when life had made her feel small. Her story reminds me that being unseen does not mean being forgotten. God’s presence has a way of finding us in the places we least expect. Purpose does not always arrive in grand, shining ways. Sometimes it meets you in exhaustion, in waiting, in the quiet work that feels unseen.

Lately, I have felt like I am in a desert too. Wandering, wondering if my voice still matters. The words feel heavier now, slower to come. I keep looking for water, for a sign that what I’m doing has purpose, but most days it feels like dry ground. The silence stretches out, and I find myself asking the same questions Hagar must have whispered in her wilderness: Does God still see me here?

And yet, even here, He does. The same God who met her by the spring meets me in this stillness. He does not shout above the emptiness; He simply stays. Sometimes His presence feels like the faintest breeze, like the soft breath that keeps me going when I feel spent. Sometimes it is just enough light to make it through one more day.

I have walked through wilderness seasons before. Times when I was stretched thin, when I questioned if my prayers ever left the room, when I worked and poured and still felt unseen. Seasons of young motherhood, of scraping together enough to make ends meet, of doing my best while feeling like it was never enough.

And still, even in those years, God was there. Not loud or obvious, but steady, like a breath that never left, like light slipping through the trees when I did not realize I needed it most. Looking back, I can see how His care was threaded through it all: the kindness of a stranger, the strength to get through another shift, the unexpected peace that came just before I broke.

That is the thing about the unseen work; it is still holy work. Seeds do not grow in the light; they break open underground. The same is true of us. Sometimes God buries us in seasons of obscurity, not to hide us, but to grow us. What looks like silence may just be the sound of roots taking hold.

Patience grows like that too. You learn it by watching the seasons change, seeing how the same ground that looks barren in winter bursts with life come spring. Maybe faith is like that too, believing that what feels quiet and unseen today will one day rise into something beautiful and full of purpose.

When I think of Hagar, I think of all the people walking through their own deserts. The mother praying for strength. The man quietly carrying the weight of his family. The dreamer who keeps showing up long after the applause has faded. God saw Hagar in her pain, and He sees us too.

If you feel unseen, you are not forgotten. The same God who met a weary woman in the desert still walks into wilderness places today. He knows every word you have written, every prayer you have whispered, every seed you have planted in faith.

Because in the kingdom of God, nothing poured out in love is ever wasted. The smallest act, the quietest offering, the unseen obedience, all of it matters.

And maybe that is the beauty of it. The God who saw Hagar in the wilderness still sees me here, wandering through my own desert, hands on the keyboard, tending to the seeds He has asked me to plant, trusting that something holy is growing, even if I cannot see it yet.