The morning of November 6, 2024, I wake to Caleb drawing circles on the back of my hand. We do this every morning: he wakes me as he is getting ready to go to work, and I sit, blearily, at the kitchen table while he ties his shoes. This morning, I roll away from him to check my phone. 

“Trump won,” I say. 

He doesn’t answer me. I walk him down the stairs to our front door, ignoring the drop in my chest, and hug him too long. I do not mention the election again. 

After he leaves, I make coffee, wash my face, feed the cat. I pick out a sweatshirt, open the blinds, froth some milk. I put away last night’s dishes.

I had avoided writing this post in advance. I wanted to write it after the election. I had written it in my head, peacefully bipartisan, quiet and hopeful, an example of what unity could read like. 

I had not considered this reality. 

Isaiah 6 begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim… and one called to another and said ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!’ And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.” 

The morning of November 6, 2024, I sat on the couch, with a coffee I had made for some sense of continuity, and in my heart, King Uzziah was dead. And the foundations of the thresholds of my little apartment on the north side of Grand Rapids, where Donald Trump held his last rally, are shaking. I can hear no seraphim. 

“And I said, ‘Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!” 

And on my couch, I confess. And I confess that my confession is out of fear, and here, Isaiah and I differ. Isaiah’s confession is in the presence of the most High; my confession is simmering in the pool of dread that is sitting in my stomach, and yet, perhaps those are the same thing. 

Woe is me, for I am lost; I am a (wo)man of unclean lips, and I find myself between the last President Uzziah and the coming President, and I am sipping my coffee, and my fear is a panic. 

I need a King who strikes within me a fear that is an awe, and who comes to me when I cannot crawl to him. 

My point is this: the first person to name God in the Bible is a single mom, an Egyptian slave, as she runs away from a person she fears and hides by a spring in the middle of the desert, and when the angel of the Lord comes to her, giving her a promise and a mandate, Hagar dares what Abraham does not. To her, God is “Lahai Roi:” “The Living One who Sees [Watches Over] Me.” 

And this morning, the morning of November 6, 2024, I confess that I can only see a trembling democracy built on checks and balances ushering in a candidate who seems uncheckable. I confess that it is difficult to see the Lord sitting upon the throne. 

“Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: ‘Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.’” 

He sees me when I cannot see Him. And He comes, in the form of the seraphim or the angel of the Lord, and He accepts my confession with burning coals. Behold, in my panic, He is the Lord, sitting upon the throne, the train of whose robe fills the temple, and He is Lahai Roi: The Living One Who Watches Over Me.

Kate Wilmot

Kate Wilmot (’24) is a Grand Rapids resident who has found herself in the in-betweens of undergrad and post-grad life. She is an avid children’s fiction reader and a globally-minded cook who will feed anyone that walks in her door. You can find her losing to her husband in pickleball, weight lifting, or getting coffee with her mom.