I've got a grandson who loves to play "hide and seek." I haven't told him that I'm pretty much onto his favorite places to hide in our house. But he's figured out the best places to become totally invisible when I'm looking for him.
But being invisible isn't always fun. There are people - including someone who told me just this week - who have basically felt invisible their whole lives. You can feel invisible in your family...at school...where you work...even in your marriage. It's awful feeling like no one seems to know - or care - that you're there.
I read something from the life of Jesus a few days ago that carries real hope for people who feel marginalized, ignored, passed over. This woman who'd been battling an incurable condition for 12 years had run out of hope. No doctors left to see, no dollars left to pay one. Desperate, she pushes her way through the masses that are thronging around Jesus, believing she'd be healed if she could just touch His robe. Which she does. And she gets her miracle.
Jesus - who's mobbed by people - says, "Somebody touched Me." Then comes this wonderful footnote to the story: "Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed...fell at His feet" (Luke 8:47). Obviously, this woman was used to no one noticing her. I'm thinking, "Who is there around me like that? And shouldn't I be looking for those very people and making them feel important?"
This desperate woman discovered that day what millions have discovered since. Nobody goes unnoticed by Jesus! For Jesus, there are no invisible people. How could there be? The Bible says that each and every one of us was "created by Him and for Him" (Colossians 1:16). You are not just some random protoplasm, wandering across this planet. You were created by Jesus as a divine original. Created for a love relationship with the God who made a hundred billion galaxies. He knows you. He loves you. He has plans for you.
All those people who've overlooked you and made you feel so small don't know who you are! In the words of the Bible, you are "God's workmanship" (Ephesians 2:10). But that's only the beginning. Jesus thinks you're so valuable that you were worth dying for. Nailed to a cross. Paying for every wrong thing you've ever done. Why? Because He doesn't want to lose you! So He died to make it possible for the sins of a lifetime to be erased from God's book. He wants you with Him forever. "God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever (you can put your name there!) believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
He became the ultimate Victim so you would never have to live like a victim again. Because no matter how you're treated, you know you are loved and cared for by the God who runs it all. When you open up to His love, you can spend the rest of your life handing out His love to a world of "invisible" people.
You are not unnoticed. You are not invisible. Jesus never stops thinking of you. Especially when He looks at the nail prints in His hand.