We thought we were prepared to read Genesis with our sons. It’s not as though we didn’t know what we were getting ourselves into. And honestly, it wasn’t the fact that God essentially drowns every human being except one family in Genesis 7 that raised eyebrows. It was Noah getting drunk and naked in Genesis 9 that really got their attention. And then, of course, there was Genesis 16—Abram’s wife telling him to sleep with her maid Hagar to conceive a child. When we read that, Eli said, “This has me thinking about Noah getting drunk.”

But then we read about Hagar. . . Hagar, pregnant, running away. Hagar, who never asked for this. Hagar . . . who is every person who feels unmoored, unloved, unseen.

But God saw Hagar. And in Scripture, when God sees, God loves, God protects, God promises. And as the story goes, “To the Lord who spoke to her she gave a name, saying, ‘You are God who sees me’” (Gen 16:13).

Then I remembered why we were reading Genesis. Because even a ten-year-old and a twelve-year-old need to hear and know that no matter how insignificant we may feel or how bleak things may look, we are seen by the one who created it all. The glance of the one who is both lover and beloved is eternal (Song of Songs 2:4; 4:9). This is God’s name, after all, a name given by Hagar: God-Who-Sees-Me.

We know God by this name. Like Hagar, this gaze, this glance, has fallen upon us in the wilderness, by the side of the road. It has fallen upon us in hospitals, at gravesides, in bedrooms and kitchens. It falls upon us when we lie awake at night, when we worry, when we grieve, when we’re numb.

We may not always feel “ravished” by this glance like the lover in the Song of Songs. But after years of living and loving (and reading Genesis), we know. Our God is the one who sees.