This is when I come face to face my hypocrisy. It was uncomfortable with Rebekah and Rachel but there was outward beauty with them. Maybe if people saw me with them they would think I was beautiful too. Leah less so. Do I want to be seen with plain Leah. Yet she doesn’t need my pity either. Yes she has known rejection, she played her sister’s game of using her servant to have more children. She has been the third party, if even that, in a marriage.
She brings raw honesty to my afternoon of how I see others. Of how I see myself. The yo-yo view of myself and with that flows my yo yoing love toward others. To love another needs to flow not out of my view of myself but out of my right understanding of God’s love and His love for me.
Truth be told though I don’t want to sit with Leah long. I know the judgemental attitude I showed Rebekah and Rachel and yet somehow I want them to come back. I am more concerned with how people see me based on the company I appear to keep. In Leah I see how superficial I am, how easily I toss here and there. I want to live a life that honours God but its not all I want. I want recognition, I want to stand out, I want to be noticed.
I don’t think I am alone though in my thinking. If there is one thing life and parenting has taught me is that while we like to think of ourselves as unique, in the good and the bad, the truth is we are not as unique as we like to think. There are a few people I know or have met briefly and in an instant you know they, their life, their identity is in God alone and they truly are content. They are not tossed about like the sea. For me they are also all generally over 70, so that gives me hope as God continues to work in me, knowing He will not give up on me. They have reached that place because through the ups and downs of life God has kept His word and they have kept their eyes however imperfectly on Him.
Lord give me the courage to spend time with Leah, to lean in and learn. In Jesus name we pray.
https://www.eden.co.uk/lent-books-for-individuals/forty-women/
Joshua's Tree Rooted 