God Heard the Boy's Cry

Hagar and Ishmael are sent away by Abraham, running out of water in the wilderness. Hagar puts Ishmael down to die, can't bear to watch. But God hears the boy's cry - not the mother's prayer, but the child's physical voice.

I think about how many children cry and nobody hears. My own childhood was full of cries that went unnoticed. This verse says that even when parents fail, when abandonment happens, the child's voice registers in heaven.

I work with foster youth now, and I read this to them sometimes. Not to minimize what they've lost, but to assert that their pain has been heard. Not by anyone human, maybe. But by the God who opened Hagar's eyes to water that was already there. The provision sometimes arrives in our survival, not in prevention of the crisis.