Her name was Hagar. She was an Egyptian slave woman in the household of Abraham and Sarah. She had not chosen her circumstances. She had not engineered her displacement. She had simply been used by one person's desperation, then discarded when that desperation gave way to resentment, and now she was out here, in the wilderness between Shur and Kadesh, with nothing but her unborn child and a desperate question: does anyone see me?

And God answered that question in person.

He came to her. He called her by name. He acknowledged her suffering without minimizing it. He gave her a promise that would carry her through everything that lay ahead. And she, having been found by the God of the universe at the lowest point of her life, gave Him a name that has never been forgotten: El Roi, The God Who Sees.

Why Hagar?

When the Spirit of God began to lay the content of this book on my heart, I asked Him the same question you may be asking right now: why Hagar? Why not Esther, who found courage in a palace? Why not Deborah, who led a nation? Why not Ruth, whose loyalty became legend?

The answer I received was simple and devastating: because millions of people right now are not in a palace, and they are not leading a nation. They are in the wilderness. They are sitting in the dust with a child who is crying and a bottle that is empty. They had been sent away from somewhere they thought they belonged. They are trying to survive a situation that was not supposed to be their story.