Invisible - by Sean Michael Wooten (Preacher Man) - Tuesday, July 01, 2025
Does anyone see my hurt bleeding through the cracks of my smile? My pain carved into the hollow spaces behind my eyes? My scars etched so deep they've become part of my bone marrow—the way I see theirs written across their faces, their posture, their trembling hands? Or have I become so transparent that light passes right through me?
Am I just invisible?
Does anyone hurt with the kind of agony that makes breathing feel like drowning in your own lungs? The kind that turns your chest into a cemetery where hope goes to die? Or is this suffocation mine alone?
Am I just invisible?
If I were to disappear tomorrow—if my chair at dinner remained empty, if my voice went silent in the pulpit, if my footsteps no longer echoed through our home—would the absence of me leave a wound in the world? Or would life simply flow around the space where I used to be, like water around a stone that was never there? Would I just be...
Invisible?
Some people wear their anguish like armor—tattoos that scream their stories, piercings that punctuate their pain, scars that have hardened into visible monuments to survival. Their wounds demand attention, command respect, refuse to be ignored. But mine? Mine are buried beneath layers of "I'm fine" and "God is good" and "How can I serve you today?" Mine are invisible even to me sometimes, until they claw their way up from the depths of my soul and tear me apart from the inside. Are they so deeply hidden that I've ceased to exist?
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When I'm sitting in the sanctuary, surrounded by believers lifting their hands in worship, trying to focus on the God who holds galaxies in His palms—but inside my skull there's a war zone. Artillery fire of anxiety. Mortar shells of despair. A battlefield where hope and desperation fight to the death every single day. The hymns sound like sad and gloomy funeral songs. The prayers feel like they bounce off the ceiling and fall dead at my feet. We rush through the Lord's Supper like it's something else on the checklist and has no important significance whatsoever. I'm screaming "HELP ME" with every fiber of my being, but all that comes out is "Amen."
Do they see the man behind the mask? Do they hear the silent screaming? Do they realize I'm bleeding out spiritually in the back pew from the front?
Or am I just invisible?
When I'm standing at the waterfront, watching families create memories I can barely remember how to make, trying to find peace in God's creation—the birds singing songs my heart has forgotten how to hear, the sunshine that warms my skin but can't touch the ice in my veins, the calm waters that mock the hurricane raging in my soul—I take off my shoes and walk barefoot on the grass, desperately trying to reconnect with the earth, to feel something real beneath my feet. I want to scream at the beauty because it makes my ugliness feel more hideous. I want to run into the water and let it carry away the pieces of me that are too broken to fix.
Do they see the man drowning on dry land? Do they notice that I'm suffocating in paradise?
Or am I just invisible?
When I'm walking through grocery store aisles like a ghost haunting his own life, trying to remember what normal people buy, what families need to survive, while my mind disintegrates like wet paper—every decision feels impossible, every choice feels wrong, every step forward feels like falling backward into an abyss that has no bottom. I'm reading shopping lists through tears I can't let fall. I'm buying food for a family while I'm starving for connection.
Do they see the man completely falling apart from the inside out? Do they notice I'm slowly disappearing right in front of them?
Or am I just invisible?
Sometimes I feel like I'm caught in a galactic war—not just the battle raging in my mind, but something cosmic, something that spans dimensions I can't even comprehend. Forces pulling at my soul from every direction, dark powers that know my name, principalities and powers that wage war against everything good I'm trying to become. I'm fighting battles on multiple fronts—against my own thoughts, against spiritual darkness, against the weight of a broken world—and I'm fighting them alone in the vast emptiness of space where no one can hear me scream.
Even in this cosmic conflict where my very soul is the battleground, even when I'm wrestling with demons both literal and metaphorical, even when I'm standing at the center of a war that spans eternity itself—I remain unseen, unheard, unknown.
Am I invisible even in the midst of galactic warfare?
When I'm standing behind the pulpit, holding God's Word in hands that shake with more than reverence, speaking truth while drowning in lies my own mind tells me—"You're a fraud," "You're failing," "You're not enough," "You'll never be enough," "You're a heretic," "You're no good," "No one will ever respect you or listen to you"—but somehow God's voice breaks through my brokenness, somehow His light shines through my cracks, somehow His strength carries me when my legs won't hold me up. I'm preaching resurrection while feeling dead inside. I'm proclaiming hope while hope feels like a foreign language. I want to arrive at my destination—heaven—but it seems so far away.
Do they see the broken vessel trying to pour out living water? Do they know I'm dying while delivering life?
Or am I just invisible?
When I'm sitting across from my beloved wife—this woman who chose to love me and spend her entire life with me, when I couldn't love myself, who promised "for better or worse" and got mostly worse, who deserves a man who's present instead of a ghost who sits at her table—trying to give her the attention she's earned, the love she's owed, the partnership she signed up for. But I'm trapped behind glass walls of my own making, screaming for her but the sound won't travel through the barrier. I'm here but not here. Present but absent. Loving her but lost to her.
Does she see the man fighting to reach her through the fog? Does she know I'm clawing at the walls of my own prison, desperate to touch her heart?
Or am I invisible even to the one who knows me best?
Am I trapped in my own prison—the prison of my mind?
Or am I just invisible?
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Do people understand that my mind is a war zone? That thoughts machine-gun through my consciousness, that feelings detonate like grenades in my chest, that every day is a struggle just to keep my head above water in an ocean of overwhelming emotion? That I wake up already exhausted from dreams that feel like nightmares, that I go to bed terrified of waking up to fight the same battles again tomorrow with what seems like unending defeat—and all I want is victory and peace within?
Do they know that "How are you?" is a loaded question that could break me if I answered honestly? That "I'm fine" is the heaviest lie I carry? That every smile is an act of defiance against the darkness that wants to swallow me whole?
Are people so consumed with their own survival—their own bills, their own heartbreaks, their own daily disasters—that my quiet drowning goes unnoticed? That everything I'm desperately trying to accomplish, every sermon I preach, every hand I shake, every prayer I offer to bring glory to God, is happening while I'm slowly disappearing?
Do these people even care that I exist? Are they even capable of seeing past their own pain long enough to notice mine? Or have I become so skilled at being invisible that I've erased myself completely?
Do they really see me—the man, not the preacher; the human, not the holy; the broken, not the blessed—or have they decided it's easier to keep me at arm's length, to keep me at bay, and to let me remain a safe distance away where my pain can't contaminate their peace? Where I can just be...
Invisible?
Do they set up fortresses with all their calvaries, ground troops, and soldiers just to keep me at bay, so they don't have to handle my burdens with me because my burdens are too heavy or too much for them to help me bear or to even give me the opportunity to help them bear theirs, as God commands us, and when I even come close all things turn sour like the next great and disastrous world war.
Am I invisible to them?
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You know what the truth is? We stumble through this life like walking wounded, inflicting injuries we never intended, carrying pain we never asked for, spreading hurt like a virus we can't cure. We speak without thinking about the weight our words carry. We act without considering the ripple effects that will become tsunamis in someone else's life. We think without remembering that our thoughts shape our reality and our reality shapes the world around us.
We treat people like they're disposable, like they're interruptions in our story instead of fellow travelers on the same broken road. We do what we want, when we want, how we want, building walls instead of bridges, creating distance instead of connection, choosing isolation over intimacy because isolation feels safer than the risk of being truly known. Even when we're in the same room, we're in each other's presence, it feels like we are galaxies and light years away from one another. We've become so disconnected, so disconcerned with one another, even while we're in the same room.
And then one day—like a bill that's come due, like a debt collector at our door—the consequences arrive. All the careless words, all the thoughtless actions, all the times we chose ourselves over others, all the moments we made someone feel invisible... it all comes crashing down at once.
We sink into depression so deep it has its own geography—valleys of despair, mountains of regret, oceans of tears that could drown continents. We discover that the abyss isn't just a place; it's a permanent address. Light becomes a foreign concept. Hope becomes a language we've forgotten how to speak.
Our words, we realize too late, were weapons we didn't know we were firing. Our thoughts were seeds that grew into forests of consequences we never meant to plant. Our actions were earthquakes that shifted the ground beneath everyone around us. Even in the light of day, we have become invisible.
But instead of reaching for each other, instead of building bridges across our mutual brokenness, we bite and devour like wounded animals. We push each other away because we think distance will protect us from more pain. We isolate because we believe our suffering is too heavy for anyone else to carry, or for them to understand.
And then we have the audacity to wonder why we're invisible to one another. We have the audacity and keep wondering why our congregations keep decreasing, instead of increasing, wondering why people don't want to obey the gospel and come to the one that can save them. We have a struggle and a difficult time showing the world that Jesus has saved us, let alone that Jesus can save them.
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When somebody calls you on the phone—the way people did for centuries before technology taught us that connection is optional, before we learned to hide behind screens and silence notifications—do you answer? Do you engage? Do you remember that there's a human being on the other end, a soul that might be screaming inside just like you?
Or do you stare at the ringing phone like it's a grenade about to explode, letting it go to voicemail because voicemail is safer than vulnerability, because automated messages are easier than authentic connection?
Are people really invisible to you, or have you just become expert at making them disappear? Do you use your busyness like a weapon—"I'm busy at work," "I'm busy with family," "I'm busy with life"—as if being busy is a badge of honor instead of an excuse for emotional cowardice?
We're all busy. We're all drowning in our own responsibilities, our own pain, our own desperate attempts to keep our heads above water. But some of us still answer the phone.
Or maybe you see them clearly but choose not to engage because they intimidate you with their need, their pain, their raw humanity. Because you see something in them that you recognize in yourself—something you don't want to face, something you're not ready to heal. Because you're so consumed with your own wounds that you can't imagine carrying theirs too, even though God commands us to bear one another's burdens, even though that's what love actually means.
So you sit there, hoping the phone will stop ringing, hoping the answering machine will save you from having to be human, hoping they'll just... disappear. You pretend they're invisible because invisible people don't require anything from you.
But here's what breaks my heart the most and that is so gut wrenching: Jesus was busy. Busier than any of us will ever be. He had a world to save, disciples to train, miracles to perform, a cross to carry. He had every reason to let people become invisible, to prioritize His mission over individual need.
But people were never invisible to Him. Ever.
No matter how exhausted He was, no matter how pressed for time, no matter how overwhelming the crowds became—people were not invisible to Jesus. The leper who wasn't supposed to be touched. The woman caught in adultery who wasn't supposed to be defended. The children who weren't supposed to matter. The tax collectors who weren't supposed to be loved.
People were not invisible to Him because people were His mission.
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But here's what I know to be true, what I cling to when everything else feels like quicksand:
We may be invisible to each other—lost in our own pain, blinded by our own tears, deafened by our own screaming—but we are not invisible to God. Not to our Almighty God who counts every tear, who collects every broken piece, who knows all the number of hairs on our head, and who sees us in our darkest moments and knows and calls us by name. Our Creator who knew us before we knew ourselves. Our King who rules from a throne built on love, not judgment.
He sees all things. He knows all things. He feels all things.
The one who has all the power, the authority, and the control, no matter what happens, no matter how invisible we may be to others, or ourselves.
The tragedy—the heartbreaking, soul-crushing tragedy—is that sometimes our own King becomes invisible to us. Sometimes our pain is so loud we can't hear His voice even when we continue to read and study His Holy Inspired Word. Sometimes our darkness is so thick we can't see His light. Sometimes our walls are so high we can't feel His presence.
When our consequences come knocking like debt collectors, when our sins find us out like bloodhounds on a scent, when the weight of who we've been crashes down on who we're trying to become—will we be ready? Will we be strong enough to bear the crushing weight of every thoughtless word, every careless action, every time we made someone else feel invisible?
Or will we scream for mercy, cry out for grace, beg for understanding and forgiveness from the very people we made feel like they didn't exist—only to discover that some doors, once closed, don't open ever again? That some relationships, once broken, can't ever be repaired? That some consequences are permanent residents in the house of our lives for all eternity?
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I am screaming inside this very moment, and the sound is so loud it drowns out everything else. I am drowning in plain sight, suffocating in rooms full of air, dying while everyone watches. I am invisible even to myself sometimes, lost in the maze of my own mind, trapped in the prison of my own making.
But God hears the screaming. God sees the drowning. God knows the dying. God feels the pain.
And maybe—maybe if you're reading this, if these words have found their way into your heart, if they've penetrated that tough shell that you're hiding yourself in so that you become invisible to everyone else around you as well, if you recognize yourself in this mirror of pain—maybe you can see me too.
Maybe we can be visible to each other.
Maybe that's where healing really begins.
True healing begins when we bear one another's burdens, we pray for one another, and we carry each other to the foot of the cross. We bow down tired, weary, exhausted invisible to the one that sees us and that we're not invisible to, and we just let him have it all and we leave it there so that we no longer become invisible.
