Seen by God: Finding Healing After Trauma

The ache of 06/21/2021 names a day when an ordinary neighborhood became a place of gunfire, fear, police tape, and isolation. The public record could tell part of the story, a cop, a killer, a good guy with a gun, and three people dead. The private ache carried something else: witnesses, survivors, victims, officers openly weeping, neighbors hemmed in, loved ones unable to get in, and people longing to be seen.

The grief of that day presses into the question of what the world cannot see and may never know. The news crews could leave quickly because “only three people died,” but the people inside the event carried the complexity, the terror, and the pieces that would never be written about. The longing underneath it all was simple and deep: someone needed to see, to hold, to make well, to come close when no one could actually get through the barriers.

Genesis gives that longing a name through Hagar. Hagar’s story is hard, full of abuse, power struggles, and people in pain inflicting pain in the name of God. Hagar runs away in her suffering, and in her running she runs smack into God. God does not cause her suffering, and God does not fix it in a neat or traditional way, but God sees her tear-stained cheeks and says, in effect, “You matter. You are beloved.” Hagar becomes the first human voice in Scripture to give God a name that sticks: El Roi, the God who sees me.

Mark gives the longing another body in the woman who reaches for Jesus in the crowd. Jesus is hurried, hassled, tired, frustrated, and surrounded by people who want a piece of him. Yet the woman risks reaching out because she believes that if Jesus sees her, even for one split second, healing can break in. In that moment she sees Jesus, Jesus sees her, and both are seen in the place where faith says the burden is not carried alone.

The invitation of the people of God rests here: whole people can still feel wholly broken, neglected, overlooked, beaten down, paralyzed by fear and grief and loss. The God who sees does not erase every wound at once, but the God who calls his children beloved sends voices, hugs, prayers, and patient witnesses until healing comes. Hagar discovered this in the wilderness. The woman discovered it in the crowd. The survivor discovered it on one of humanity’s darker days: El Roi sees.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. Being seen can become balm [44:33] Being seen may not physically fix the thing that is broken. The ache may remain, the story may still hurt, and the world may still miss the depth of what happened. Yet the gaze that says “you are not alone” can become the only balm available in a moment when rescue cannot get through. [44:33]
• 2. Hagar names the seeing God [46:13] Hagar meets God not in safety, but in flight. Human sin has wounded her, and God’s presence does not pretend that pain is small or simple. El Roi becomes a holy name because God sees the one pushed aside and gives dignity before circumstances have been repaired. [46:13]
• 3. Faith reaches through crowded pain [48:18] The woman in Mark reaches for Jesus from a place of desperation and risk. Her faith is not polished or public; it is a trembling reach from the edge of the crowd. Jesus’ seeing does not shame her need, but draws her hidden suffering into mercy and healing. [48:18]
• 4. Healing comes with patient witnesses [51:06] The hugs and voices after trauma do not make grief quick or easy. They become signs that healing can come because someone is willing to sit close until it does. God’s seeing often arrives through human presence that refuses to rush pain or abandon the wounded.
  
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Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [37:21] - Thanks Be to God
• [38:02] - Old Town Square Remembered
• [39:16] - Living Inside the Event
• [40:28] - Sealed In by Grief
• [41:29] - Longing to Be Seen
• [42:25] - What the News Could Not See
• [44:33] - Scripture Meets the Private Ache
• [45:15] - Hagar in the Wilderness
• [47:39] - Jesus in the Pressing Crowd
• [49:41] - Whole People, Broken Places
• [50:45] - The God Who Sees
• [52:08] - Hagar, the Woman, and Home

Bible Reading

Genesis 16:1-16
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram's wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. And when she saw that she had conceived, she looked with contempt on her mistress. And Sarai said to Abram, “May the wrong done to me be on you! I gave my servant to your embrace, and when she saw that she had conceived, she looked on me with contempt. May the Lord judge between you and me!” But Abram said to Sarai, “Behold, your servant is in your power; do to her as you please.” Then Sarai dealt harshly with her, and she fled from her. The angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She said, “I am fleeing from my mistress Sarai.” The angel of the Lord said to her, “Return to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude.” And the angel of the Lord said to her, “Behold, you are pregnant and shall bear a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, because the Lord has listened to your affliction. He shall be a wild donkey of a man, his hand against everyone and everyone's hand against him, and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.” 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.” Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi; it lies between Kadesh and Bered. And Hagar bore Abram a son, and Abram called the name of his son, whom Hagar bore, Ishmael. Abram was eighty-six years old when Hagar bore Ishmael to Abram. [46:13]

Mark 5:25-34
And there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for twelve years, and who had suffered much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, “If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.” And immediately the flow of blood dried up, and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, immediately turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my garments?” And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing around you, and yet you say, ‘Who touched me?’” And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.” [47:39]

Observation questions

1. In Genesis 16, what are some of the painful human actions and power struggles that push Hagar into the wilderness? [45:15]
2. In Genesis 16, what does the angel of the Lord do and say when Hagar is on the run, and what name does Hagar give to God?
3. In Mark 5, what details show the woman’s desperation before she reaches for Jesus, and how does she finally act in the crowd? [48:32]
4. What are some concrete examples of people longing to be seen in the midst of trauma, barriers, and isolation? [41:29]

Interpretation questions

1. Hagar names God as the one who sees. What does that reveal about God’s character when someone has been pushed aside, mistreated, or forgotten? [46:25]
2. God sees Hagar, but her hardship is not neatly erased. How does that shape the way suffering and God’s presence should be understood together? [46:50]
3. Jesus stops in the middle of a pressing crowd to notice one hidden sufferer. Why might being seen be part of the woman’s healing and not just a small detail in the story? [49:12]
4. Being seen may not physically fix what is broken, yet it can still become balm. What kind of healing is present in that claim, and why does it matter in seasons of grief or fear? [44:47]

Application questions

1. When has there been a season where the deepest need was not for quick answers but simply for someone to see the pain honestly? What helped, and what did not help? [44:59]
2. Whole people can still feel utterly broken. Where might that be true right now—in fear, grief, exhaustion, numbness, or isolation—and what would it look like to let God meet that place instead of hiding it? [49:41]
3. Hagar ran in her pain and met God in the wilderness. When pain rises, is there a tendency to run, shut down, lash out, or disappear? What might it look like to believe that God still sees in that place? [46:13]
4. The woman in Mark takes a trembling risk to reach for Jesus. What might a small but real act of faith look like right now for someone who feels overlooked or worn thin? [48:56]
5. God’s seeing often comes through human presence—through a voice, a prayer, a hug, or someone willing to stay nearby. Who in life right now may need that kind of steady presence, and what might it look like to offer it without trying to rush their healing? [51:18]
6. There are private aches the world cannot see. What burdens are hardest to put into words, and what would it mean to trust that God sees even what others never fully will? [44:03]
7. At the deepest part of humanity, people want to know they are loved and seen. What practices, relationships, or rhythms help that truth sink in when the heart is struggling to believe it? [51:44]