It Was More Than I Thought It Was
The Iris Issue
CONFIDENT LIFT | 5.4.26
I Thought I Knew
What the Iris Was
I walked into the Iris Conference expecting beautiful flowers, and walked out with one of the most profound revelations about how God has designed us to see.
Sis, you need to hear this.
I was invited by one of my dearest friends to attend the Iris Conference in Katy this weekend, and the experience… was absolutely beautiful… just not in the way I expected.
God had a different kind of bloom waiting for me.
From the very first session, I realized this conference was centered on something far more layered, far more intimate, and far more alive than any flower. My favorite flower, the iris, I learned, is also one of the most critical and complex structures of the human eye. And as Pastor Elaine began to unpack what it does, I felt the Holy Spirit tug on something deep inside me. Because this was about so much more than anatomy. This was about how God has wired us to see.
Did You Know That The Iris Is Not Just a Flower?
The iris is the colored part of your eye, those beautiful rings of brown, hazel, green, grey, or blue that make you uniquely you. But here's what took my breath away: the iris doesn't just give your eye color. It is a living, breathing muscle that controls how much light enters your eye through the pupil. It expands in darkness to let in more light. It contracts in brilliance to protect you from being overwhelmed. It is always…always…responding to the environment around it. No two irises on earth are identical. Not even your own two eyes match each other exactly. God was very intentional when He designed it.
Can we talk about Hagar for a moment? In Genesis 21:19, it says, "Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water." Hagar is one of those women in scripture that I feel like we often rush past, but sis, her story is for us. Hagar was a woman used, dismissed, and sent away with nothing but a child and a container of water that eventually ran out. She sat in the desert, alone, hopeless, weeping, absolutely convinced that she and her son were going to die there.
She couldn't see a way out. She couldn't see the provision. She couldn't see hope. She had physically stopped looking.
And then something happened. God didn't just send an angel to tell her about the water; He opened her eyes. The well was already there. The provision was already present. She just could not see it. It took a divine touch on her vision for everything to shift.
This is the moment I heard God whisper: "Kisha, the well is already there for you also. I need to open your eyes to see what I've already placed in front of you."
Earlier, in Genesis 16, Hagar had given God a name that no one else in all of scripture ever gave Him: El Roi, "The God Who Sees Me." She was not invisible to Him. And beloved, neither are you.
3 Revelations The Iris Is
Teaching Me About Faith
01: Your Iris Controls the Light, so Guard What You Let In: Your iris is a gatekeeper. It determines the level of light that is safe for your eyes at any given moment. Too much light with no protection? Damage. Too little light with the iris closed shut? Blindness.
Spiritually, this mirrors what God has been speaking to so many of us: be intentional about what you let into your eye gate. What you consume, the images, the words, the narratives, the comparisons, shapes what you believe is possible for your life. The enemy knows this. That's why he works overtime to flood your vision with fear, lack, and doubt.
Hagar couldn't see the well because despair had become her entire field of vision. But when God opened her eyes, she saw through the lens of provision, and it changed everything. Beloved, ask God daily: "Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things." (Psalm 119:18)
02: Your Iris Is Uniquely Yours and So Is Your Calling: Forensic scientists have used the iris for identification for decades, because no two are alike. Just like fingerprints. Even identical twins have entirely different irises. Your iris is so specific to you that it can be used to unlock secure systems around the world.
That stopped me in my tracks. Because how often do we look at another woman's life, her platform, her gifts, her opportunities, and begin to question whether ours are "enough"? We try to replicate someone else's calling, someone else's voice, someone else's lane. But God didn't wire you to see the world through her iris. He gave you your own.
Hagar had a name for God that no one else in scripture ever used: El Roi. Her encounter with Him was uniquely hers. And the well He showed her was meant specifically for her and her son. What God has for you, sis, was custom-designed for the specific way He made you to see. Stop trying to live through someone else's vision.
03: Your Iris Responds to Where You Focus, so Fix Your Eyes on Jesus: Here's the one that really got me: your iris doesn't just respond to light in your environment. It responds to where you look. When you focus on something far away, your pupil changes. When you look at something up close, it changes again. The iris is always, always responding to the object of your gaze.
Hebrews 12:2 tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Not our circumstances. Not our failures. Not the opinions of others. Not the timeline we thought our life would follow. When He is the object of our focus, our vision adjusts. Our faith expands. And the wells that were hidden begin to come into view.
Sis,You Were Made
to See Clearly.
I walked into the Iris Conference thinking I was going to learn about flowers. I walked out understanding something far more intimate about the way God designed me…designed us, to perceive the world around us.
Like Hagar, there are wells right in front of you that you cannot yet see. Provision that exists. A calling already placed. A future already written. But God wants to open your eyes — to guard your vision, to honor your uniqueness, and to fix your gaze back on His face.
The iris of your eye is always working, always adjusting, always responding. May your spiritual sight do the same.
A Prayer For You:
Lord, open our eyes. Just as You opened Hagar's eyes in the wilderness and she saw what was already there, open ours. Teach us to guard our vision, to walk in our unique calling, and to keep our gaze fixed on You. We declare today: El Roi, You see us, and because You see us, we will not despair in the desert. The well is already there. In Jesus' name, Amen.
