God Who Sees Me - Held in Grief by the God of Comfort

“O LORD, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. . .You know everything I do.” (Psalm 139:1, 3, NLT)

Not all grievers get a casserole. I don’t know what it’s like where you live, but here in the South, we show up with food, hugs, and tissues when someone has died. We don’t always get it right or do it perfectly, but we do have established ways of recognizing someone’s pain in these circumstances. I’ve learned how important it is to attend visitations and memorial services and I’ve delivered my fair share of lasagnas and flowers after a loss.

But not all grievers get that kind of support. Maybe your loss was complicated, and you’re tending a story the people around you don’t fully understand. Maybe the death triggered the loss of other significant relationships, only adding to your pain.

Maybe the funeral was far away, or the person meant far more than people realize, and your grief has gone practically unnoticed. Or maybe your family or community simply failed to rally for you and have never attempted to understand your grief.

Some of the most gut-wrenching grief is the kind that goes unseen. It can feel like our overlooked grief doesn’t matter. But it does. It always does. Even if no one else sees your pain, God does.

Luke 8 tells the story of Jairus, the local synagogue leader who fell at Jesus’ feet amidst an enormous crowd and begged Jesus to come to his house where his daughter lie dying. Jairus was a prominent man, publicly grieving, who could boldly share his need out loud. He was likely surrounded by servants, neighbors, and companions at his home who were praying and offering help.

But in that crowd was also an unnamed woman, privately grieving, who didn’t dare share her need out loud. For twelve years, she’d suffered a chronic flow of blood, spending all she had on one doctor after another but only getting worse. The bleeding meant she was unclean under Jewish law, making her an outcast from family, friends, and her community. Speaking aloud her suffering would have prevented her from seeking Jesus that day.

So, trying to stay unnoticed, she came up behind Jesus, reached out, and discreetly brushed her fingertips against the fringes of Jesus’ prayer shawl. Instantly, she was healed. Getting the miracle she’d hoped for, she could have slipped quietly back into the crowd and headed for home. Jesus could also have kept following Jairus, knowing the woman was healed.

Instead, Jesus stopped, turned, and asked into the crowd (verse 45), “Who touched me?” Jesus wasn’t seeking an answer—he knew who’d touched him. He was seeking this woman. He saw her when no one else did. He knew exactly why she suffered and how long she’d suffered. Neither she nor her pain were invisible to God.

Psalm 139:1 says God knows everything about us. He knows every hollow ache, every persistent worry, every agonizing struggle, every unspoken longing.

Whether anyone else sees your pain or shows up in your suffering, Jesus does. Our pain is never hidden from God. Our stories are never too tangled or too embarrassing or too undefined for him. While our community may not understand our circumstance, God does. He knows exactly how long we’ve suffered and every ripple of loss it has caused.

Jesus came to bind every wound, not just those our culture outwardly recognizes. Your pain matters to Jesus. And you can reach out to him boldly knowing he sees and he cares.

Prayer to God Who Sees Me

Jesus, I come to you with a deep ache I carry. It seems even heavier because those around me don’t see all that I’m walking through or understand the layers of loss I’m grieving. Though no one else understands, you do. Thank you for seeing me fully and loving me completely. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Journaling Prompt

What pain is so deep you haven’t dared to express it? How does Jesus’ intentionality with the woman in today’s reading comfort you in your unseen grief?