'Unseen' by Sara Hagerty

Every heart longs to be seen and understood. Yet most of our lives are unwitnessed. We spend our days working, driving, parenting. We sometimes spend whole seasons feeling unnoticed and unappreciated. So how do we find contentment when we feel so hidden?

In Unseen, Sara Hagerty suggests that this is exactly what God intended. He is the only One who truly knows us. He is the only One who understands the value of the unseen in our lives. When this truth seeps into our souls, we realize that only when we hide ourselves in God can we give ourselves to others in true freedom—and know the joy of a deeper relationship with the God who sees us.

Our culture applauds what we can produce, what we can show, what we can upload to social media. Only when we give all of ourselves to God—unedited, abandoned, apparently wasteful in its lack of productivity—can we live out who God created us to be. As Hagerty writes, “Maybe my seemingly unproductive, looking-up-at-Him life produces awe among the angels.”

MY THOUGHTS:
This book has a beautiful cover, matched with one of my favourite themes, the blessedness of being unseen. Sara Hagerty helps us develop a new way to approach being un-applauded, unnoticed and unrecognised. Instead of regarding it as falling short of our potential, she invites us to see that being hidden from sight is often the best place to be.

Hagerty starts off explaining how she was sucked into the trap of thinking the way society prompts us to. When a friend spotted her working in a gift shop, she felt embarrassed to be caught doing something with no scope for impact in her own opinion. Only when Hagerty stepped back to reconsider did she realise the hidden, personal growth she'd experienced in that place had been phenomenal. The quiet gift shop turned out to be the ideal hothouse to nurture her.

Our era reminds me of a garden in which every flower cranes forward for attention, notoriety and applause, and the fact that there are millions of them makes it seem crazy. Well, Hagerty reminds us that we feel this urge for light because God has made us with a desire to be seen and celebrated. We do like to hear our own names and enjoy the flush of satisfaction that follows a flash of attention. It reinforces that we matter in the grand scheme of things, so we needn't feel guilty. Trying to extinguish our desire for praise and recognition isn't the answer, because it isn't a bad thing. Where we err is most often in the direction we tend to look for praise and accolades.

Instead of craving the eyes, opinions and applause of other people, she suggests we simply remember to look to God instead, who knew us from the start, and His kind eye is always upon us. The switch of focus may be enough to relieve us instantly.

But to keep the garden analogy going, Hagerty's book makes it clear that we often tend the wrong plants. We carefully watch the growth of our reputations, success and achievements, and forget about nurturing a good heart - while this, in fact, is the only shoot that really matters. It's a great reminder that God doesn't look at things humans look at, and if we nurture loving hearts, well, that's all we really need to worry about.

Sara Hagerty offers frequent botanical analogies herself, urging us to shift our attention from our showy, leafy branches, where it's so easy to focus our attention, to our hidden roots instead. In other words, we could change the emphasis from our visible work for God to our secret, unseen life in Him. And she has a number of examples where this sort of thinking has played out in own life, with her husband and several adopted children.

Overall, the book left me with the feeling that while some of us may be born to God's showpiece, others are born to be His secrets, and both are equally significant.

Thanks to Zondervan and NetGalley for my review copy.

🌟🌟🌟½ stars