We swapped talents. I rolled up my sleeves, moved furniture, created files and made labels. She pulled out her stopwatch, recorded splits and weekly re-calibrated my plan to match my goal. I organized and she coached. She needed simplicity and I wanted to win a race.

That summer training pushed my physical limits to capacity. Each day I was more tired than the last. Muscles I didn’t know I had found themselves tested, and torn. In the afternoon hours, I ached and creaked only to get up the next day and do it all over again. And again. My body learned the rhythm of reach and rest.

My now-season of motherhood parallels that summer time. Four kids in two years, recovering a collective 15+ years of fatherlessness. Adoption made family addition more like multiplication for us. I’m a step away from training bras with my girls but I only just got my feet wet with infant hearts. We are full — seams bursting with life and pain and tears and beauty. I sink into my bed at night.

And there is a whisper that’s emerged from this season that I’m beginning to realize is the anthem of the underground railroad of motherhood. No one could understand.

I thought it was just me, until I started taking a sort of poll. The outfit changes from person to person, but the underlying sense is the same. Women stretched — taut — in different directions for different reasons who share the allure of yet another great lie (because His counsel is uncovering many lies I’ve believed), all who stand at the foot of opportunity.

“No one could understand” is a doorway.

Could it be that our daily ins-and-outs are not misunderstood, but hidden? Could it be that what we call empty is in fact holy?

Motherhood may be one of many seemingly sidelined times during which the world witnesses the glory of another so that our beauty is unveiled to only One.

We were made to be understood. We were created to have another peer into our private moments and validate where due, or gently guide where there’s lack. We were made to be known. To have another revel in our quirky beauty — or marvel at the still, subtle “yes” we give to Him when no one’s looking — is not a vain desire. Just like my little girls, I was made to be delighted in, by one who sees all of me yet still chooses to enjoy.

But the real question is by whom and when?

My cup is full to overflowing with a husband who walks tenderly beside me and priceless girlfriends who know and love my heart well, but the need to be understood stretches beyond what they could ever offer.

Because it was meant to. 

The longing is unto something. It creates a space to receive new aspects of God our constantly-filled-up selves couldn’t otherwise.

In the kingdom of God, hiddenness puts my name in will-call. I’m in. Hidden from the world, but known by Him. He invites me by covering me. Layman’s eyes may miss it, but His catch every single mommy-detail. That time my heart chose patience when circumstances begged frustration. The look she gave that said “you are safe” after months of kissing that same cheek with that same prayer. He saw the tears I fought back over laundry wondering if my mundane details could be won. The day I thought I couldn’t go another minute with all of their needs, at noon, but made it to seven when they slept — I found joy in those hours. And He saw them. All of them. He saw every one.

We crave understanding but mislabel hiddenness as toil, when it comes. We can’t wrap our minds around the fact that we can be both understood and hidden. We seek friends at the wrong times or find “outlets” that don’t actually lift us up and out to avoid the very remedy for our heart ache. Misunderstanding is a ticket to divine conversation. To relationship. To intimacy with the God-Man whose eye is on our every minute. The enemy of our hearts works around the clock to keep us away from that perspective of Him and away from those in-the-middle-of-life conversations.

But Mamas, these are our best days yet. We are not unknown; we are preserved.

He has saved us for Himself.

*Photography by Mandie Joy

When my girls were much younger and smaller (two are taller than me now!), I sometimes needed to get their attention when giving them an instruction. I’d take hold of their chin, bring their eyes to mine, and say, “Look at me!” It was my way of making sure they had really heard me.

Sound familiar?

I’m reading the Bible through chronologically this year (here’s a link to the plan in case you’re interested), and I just finished reading the book of Job. Wow. It’s given me a lot to think about, that’s for sure!

At the end of the book, God takes hold of Job’s chin, so to speak, and says, “Look at me, Job!”

After Job’s unique encounter with God, after God’s chastisement of Job, Job says this:

“My ears had heard of you

but now my eyes have seen you.”

(Job 42:5 NLT)

There’s been a change in Job. A shift in his thinking. He had heard about God before, he had known some things about God, but he had not really seen God for who He truly is: holy, majestic, all-powerful. Job’s list could go on and on.

Obviously there’s been a change in Job’s heart because he had SEEN God.

Recently one of my daughters went through a difficult time, and in the midst of this trial I asked her to write down one way, every day, that God showed Himself to be real to her. Whatever she thought of was fine—the sun rising in the morning, a good night’s sleep, a kind word from a friend, an answered prayer. Whatever she wanted.

Every night we met at her bedside for prayer and she shared with me one way that God had met her that day.

This went on for a few days, and soon her difficult time ended, but my daughter was changed. She was lighter somehow. Her spirit had lifted. Her mood had improved.

I wonder if that might be just a small glimpse of what happened with Job as he moved from hearing to really seeing God.

Do you need to see God today? Does your daughter? Scripture tells us that He’s right beside us, He’s everywhere, and He knows us intimately (Psalm 139). He’s just waiting to reveal Himself to us (John 20:27).

Write down one way that God has made Himself real to you every day this week, and I would imagine that you, like Job, will move from hearing to really seeing.

Lord, I pray for any reader today who needs to move from hearing about you to really seeing you with her own eyes. I pray for daughters who need that as well. Would you please work in our hearts and in our lives, showing us in a clear, tangible way, that you are REAL? We thank you for the many ways you are going to do that. Amen.