His Face Grew Heavy: A Reflection on What We Choose to See

His Face Grew Heavy: A Reflection on What We Choose to See

By Kateb Nuri-Alim Shunnar

He came quietly no noise, no ceremony. Just the sound of soft steps and a heart bursting open. The blind man approached not with entitlement but with hope....hope that someone, maybe you, could help him see beyond darkness. But you… you turned away.

Maybe not out of malice. Maybe you were distracted. The room was full of people who had status, and someone with influence was speaking. Someone whose presence made you straighten your back and adjust your words. And when the blind man called out when the seeker reached for you...you looked past him.

And in that moment… the Creator’s face grew heavy.

Not with rage. Not with thunder. But with sorrow a divine ache. His countenance shifted as He watched the very one gifted with light become blind to the one who needed it most.

You see, too often we turn toward the shiny and turn away from the sincere. We chase after platforms while ignoring the people planted at our feet. We pour out energy for opportunities that serve ego, while withholding it from souls who cry out for connection. And in doing so, we miss the assignment entirely.

There is a sacred weight in presence. A holy task in simply seeing who shows up. But we are often too caught up in our own importance to recognize divine appointments when they wear dusty clothes and carry broken eyes.

We give our undivided attention to the indifferent the ones who couldn’t care less if our words breathe life or not. Yet the ones who are thirsty for truth, desperate for spirit, eager to be made whole we ignore them. We delay them. We devalue them.

And so the Creator, whose eyes see all motives and moments, felt the shift. His face grew heavy because the messenger missed the message. You turned away, when you should’ve leaned in.

Let me tell you a story passed down in our family a bit of folklore from the old country, told to me by my grandmother, who had more wisdom in her hands than most folks have in their books.

There was a woman named Ama, who lived in a village wrapped in hills and history. She was known for her ability to call rain with her songs. Whenever drought struck the land, the villagers would call upon Ama, and she would go to the old well, sing into the stone, and clouds would gather like old friends answering her melody.

One season, the rain did not come. The earth cracked. The cattle cried. And Ama walked house to house, knocking gently, asking if anyone could lend her a drink of water so she might have the strength to sing. But the people, tired and suspicious, turned her away.

“You’re just an old woman,” they said. “You can’t help us now. We need someone important.”

Weary, she sat beneath a tamarind tree, voice dry, spirit aching. A small child, no older than six, came to her with a gourd of water. “I saved this,” the child whispered. “You helped my mother once.”

Ama drank slowly, looked at the child, and began to sing not loud, but soft like morning mist.

Within the hour, the skies wept.

When the villagers came running, begging forgiveness, the child said, “You wanted a miracle but turned away the miracle-maker.”

And that, my friend, is what we do too often.

We overlook the Ama in our lives the quiet, spirit-thirsty souls who don’t shine in public but shimmer in truth. We look over seekers to cater to skeptics. We pass by hungry eyes to serve full plates to the prideful. And in doing so, we disappoint the One who entrusted us with the sacred duty of care.

The Creator’s face grows heavy not because we are imperfect, but because we are indifferent. Because we forget that attention is holy. That compassion is divine currency. That to look into someone and not just at them is to honor the image of God within them.

So I ask you: who have you turned away lately?

Maybe it was the friend who called while you were “busy.” The child who asked a hard question you didn’t feel like answering. The stranger who looked lost and needed your voice. The spirit ready to be led to light but you were too taken by the ones already standing in it.

But grace still remains.

You can turn back. You can choose to see. To listen. To be like the child who gave Ama water not because he wanted a miracle, but because he remembered love.

And that’s the lesson: love doesn’t frown it grieves when we forget its purpose.

So the next time someone interrupts your rhythm pause. Look up. Be gentle.

Because the Creator is always watching, not just to judge, but to hope. To hope that this time, your heart will respond before your ego does. That this time, you will lean into the voice of the blind man, the whisper of the beggar, the faith of the child.

And when you do, the heavens won’t grow heavy. They’ll open.