Of All That Is Seen and Unseen

This morning, before my feet even hit the floor, a familiar phrase rose in my mind:
“Creator of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen.”
This phrase from the Creed, even though it’s worded differently now, is one I’ve heard my entire life in the Mass tradition. But it has never surfaced quite like this, waking me before I was fully awake. Could something so old be speaking a truth for me today?
After listening to my Advent meditation, I found myself writing down a simple question:
What is my Magnificat?
Where are the places in my life that God has met me in the obvious, unmistakable moments, and in the quiet, hidden ones? In the seen and the unseen?
There were seasons when God’s presence was so clear I could feel it in my bones. One in particular: the morning I found myself on the floor, praying with everything I had for the courage to leave my marriage. That was a moment of the seen, the kind of moment you can never un-remember. The kind that redirects a life.
But there were far more years when the unseen work of God was unfolding behind the curtain of my busy, hypervigilant life. On the surface, everything looked fine. I prayed, I functioned, I smiled. But internally, my life was fragmented and chaotic. I tried to manage everything on my own, believing that if I worked hard enough, I could somehow make my way out of the mess I had created.
I felt ashamed of where I had ended up, even though God already knew every corner of my story. I was the one hiding, not Him.
Looking back now, I can see how present God was in those unseen years. Not in ways I recognized at the time, but in the quiet nudges, the subtle protections, the intuition that whispered, Not this… not anymore. God was never absent. I was just too distracted to notice.
Lately, I’ve been returning to the image of my inner mentor, the woman I’ve written about before. She is the version of myself in her seventies, standing outside her cottage by the lake. I see her clearly: calm, grounded, wise. She looks back at the life I am living now with a kind of gentle assurance, as if to say, You’re learning. Keep going. Trust what you cannot yet see.
She is the embodiment of the unseen wisdom already planted in me.
As I reflect on this Advent season and that phrase from the Creed, I’m reminded that faith is not just believing in what is visible. It is trusting the slow, patient work happening beneath the surface. It is remembering the times when God carried me through the dark, even when I didn’t recognize His presence. The unseen.
Maybe that’s my Magnificat these days:
A quiet song of gratitude for the God who moves in both the seen and unseen places of my life.
And maybe that’s why journaling has been such a lifeline for me all these years. It is where the unseen becomes seen. Where the messy, honest parts of my story finally have a place to land.
God has always been there, in the moments I recognized and in the ones I missed.
Seen and unseen.
Always present.
I invite you to take a quiet moment and reflect on your own life.
Where can you trace God’s presence?
The seen, the clear, defining moments you can name.
The unseen, subtle nudges, the quiet protection, the hidden ways you were carried.
Write about one moment from each.
What do these experiences reveal to you about how God moves in your life today?