How to Make It Impossible to Unsee Other People
It was a Tuesday—the kind that slides by without ceremony. Nothing big happened, but everything felt heavy. I was ankle-deep in laundry, folding socks like it was the consequence of a life I barely remembered signing up for. The washer buzzed. The dog barked. A child yelled my name for the hundredth time.
I felt invisible. Numb. Not tired exactly—just hollow. Bored in a way no podcast could cure. The kind of quiet ache that makes you wonder if your life has shrunk to unseen labor and half-finished lists.
That’s when I remembered the gratitude practice I’d started two weeks earlier. It felt ridiculous at first—scribbling things like “sunlight through blinds” and “the smell of clean towels” into a notebook I hadn’t touched since January. I rolled my eyes—more than once. But something about it kept tugging me back. It didn’t erase the fatigue, but slowly rewired my vision.
So I paused—mid-fold—and made myself name three things I could thank God for, right there in the middle of the mess.
- My son’s socks—muddy from the backyard. Proof of a living, growing boy who still runs wild under open skies.
- The hum of the dryer—steady, faithful. A reminder that even machines hum with purpose.
- A crayon note taped to the wall—I luv you mom. Misspelled. Messy. Sacred.
And just like that, something cracked open.
A Different Measure
The laundry didn’t vanish, but the lens I looked through shifted. The mundane wasn’t meaningless—it was sacred ground. Folding became a whispered prayer. Scrubbing became an intercession. I stopped measuring my days by how much I finished and started measuring them by how fully I showed up.
Romans 12:1 came alive: “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (ESV) That’s not just about altars and sanctuaries. It’s socks. It’s sinks. It’s showing up to the ordinary like it matters, because in God’s kingdom, it does.
And then something unexpected happened. I started seeing people.
Not just in passing. I saw them. The widower next door, lingering by his trash cans. The young mom two doors down, pacing barefoot on her porch with a baby she couldn’t calm. I saw them, and I felt them. Gratitude had loosened my grip on my overwhelm just enough to reach for someone else’s.
A few nights later, I brought muffins to the young mom. She cried when I handed her the Tupperware. “I haven’t slept in days,” she whispered. I didn’t fix her. I didn’t preach. I stood there. I listened. I reminded her she wasn’t alone.
Days later, the widower waved me over to sit with him on the porch. “I used to think no one noticed I was still here,” he said.
That’s when I knew. Gratitude doesn’t just ground us—it sends us.
When People Become Impossible to Unsee
When we choose to thank God in the middle of the chaos, we start seeing people differently, not as interruptions but as invitations—invitations to love, to sit, to show up, to carry one another’s burdens, as Galatians 6:2 calls us to: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (ESV).
Gratitude didn’t make my to-do list shorter. It made my heart softer. Now I still write my thank-yous. Some days they’re profound—the nearness of God in the quiet. They’re painfully ordinary on other days, like frozen pizza when I’ve got nothing left. But every time, they pull me back to love. Not just upward. Not just inward. But across the street.
Because once you start seeing people through gratitude, you can’t unsee them.
Meet Gladys Childs
As the ‘Truth Doctor,’ Gladys meets people where faith and life collide—offering clarity, hope, and practical wisdom. As a pastor’s wife, author, speaker, former religion professor, and boy mom, she steps into the mess where faith feels fragile and pain runs deep, helping others find unshakable faith and lasting freedom. Learn more at gladyschilds.com. Follow on Instagram or Facebook.
Where to find her . . .
Begin Within is a series to inspire a year-round lifestyle of gratitude that will impact not only your own life, but the lives of your neighbors as well. Gratitude is a theme we talk about often around here because it ties so closely into other missional living rhythms. Practicing gratitude reminds to keep our hearts soft and expectant and our eyes open. Therefore, the more we embrace gratitude, the easier it becomes to truly see our neighbors and where we can join what God is already doing in our neighborhoods.
If you would like to contribute to Begin Within, you can find the submission guidelines here.
