Seeing the Unseen

by Tabitha, Client Services Director, Mifflintown

In training for this position as a client services director, we are taught the LOVE Approach. That first letter is to remind us to “Listen”, and of course that is very important. There is another one of our senses that I have used in consulting clients along with listening. It’s seeing.

There’s something special about watching a new client come into your door expecting a baby. Often there is no baby bump, but there is a facial expression. I often watch the eyes of others to determine a mood. You can see joy, pain, stress, and heartbreak in someone’s eyes, even when the individual is smiling.

Watching that belly grow each time a client walks through the doors is one of my favorite things about sitting at my desk and hearing the doorbell chime as they enter. I almost always comment on the growing bump with excitement. I notice if she cut her hair, is wearing a new maternity blouse, or if she looks tired. And I comment on those things as we walk back the hallway to the counseling room.

How was I going to successfully operate a pregnancy care center by phone and internet for a few months? Zoom meetings were not ideal for everyone. I wanted to see my clients.

That was my thought initially when this pandemic started in March. As I write this, we are two months into it. And as the client services director for what is to be the smallest of our four offices, I am watching our services grow and our client numbers grow.

Bumps have grown that I have not seen. Babies have been born (four babies exactly as of today with six more due here before Labor Day) since we have been closed. I have seen some pictures via email.

Still, it’s not the same.

I text or email the lessons each week and follow up mostly on the phone. I have some new clients, all of whom are experiencing their first pregnancy, and I have never seen their faces once. But I am still walking with them through their pregnancy.

So what AM I seeing?

I am seeing God’s Hand.

I’m honestly choking up with tears writing this because it’s very quiet here in this office, but He is very much here.

God’s Hand has allowed clients who were otherwise afraid to walk into this office for whatever reason—to feel a sigh of relief that they can still get the help they need and still talk to someone. I hear the excitement in the voice of a 19-year-old with an unexpected pregnancy telling me how the videos I sent to her were so interesting. Her boyfriend gets on the phone with her and comments on how he had no idea that a baby could hear or see from inside the dark womb.

And it occurs to me that we are experiencing something similar to the baby in the womb right now.

We are inside. We can hear. We can see with some limitations. And God has us in His spiritual cocoon of sorts—His womb, providing us with the umbilical cord of nutrients we so desperately need: His Word. I’ve come to realize that this time is a time to grow. It’s a time to rest in Him.

I have also been able to connect with clients who have had their babies long before this pandemic and continue to want to earn points and talk about their experiences as parents. I have witnessed a very committed Spanish-speaking client watch English videos and fill out her worksheet entirely in English—getting every word correct—because she is determined to learn to be the best mother she can be. She amazed me as a client before this pandemic and now as well as completed our limited Spanish curriculum but wants to learn more. When this same client picked up diapers with her teenage son the other day from my front porch here at the office, I saw them. They had masks on, but they waved to me and smiled through their eyes. As they drove away, I wept at my desk.

And I praised God that I can still do what I do—no matter how limited it may seem. No, I can’t see everything. And there are more moments I will not see.

But still, I see. ·