Tag Archives: abuse

genesis 16: return

Interesting, hard chapter in the story. So many emotions and dynamics going on.

Sarai’s desperation for a child. The injustice against Hagar. Abram’s unwillingness to mediate, with his “do what you want with her” attitude. Hagar’s contempt for a woman who would have her bear a child she would then have to hand over. Sarai’s mistreatment of Hagar and Hagar’s desperate escape to the desert.

We see the frailty of humanity. The weakness of fallen people trying to get what they want from this life.

And only the names have changed. Humanity is still frail, still fallen, still trying to grab life on their own terms.

But now I’m going to step on toes, I think.

Hagar was clearly a victim, being mistreated and some would even say, abused. And no matter how much we don’t want to, we must hear what the Lord says to her –

“Return to your mistress and submit to her.” (vs. 9)

I will tread lightly, but I will still tread here. Because I’ve lived it. I’ve heard the word “return and submit” and let me tell you, we’re talking about hard to the bone words to hear.

As much as we don’t want to say it or believe it, scripture makes it very clear that sometimes (please do not read the word ‘always’ there) God calls us to return to or remain in a situation of mistreatment.

“What about physical abuse?” I don’t know, ask God. “What about the kids?” I don’t know, ask God. “What about…” I don’t know, ask God. There’s no formula. God doesn’t have the exact same plan for everyone’s life. Your final destination and mine may be the same, but the journey there will look different. This is why we must seek God for ourselves, with a heart of obedience. All I’m saying is that we cannot hold onto a false belief that says God does not ever want us to suffer mistreatment, and therefore we are entitled to run from it.  

Wrestle it out with God. Kick and scream and dig in your heels. But at some point, we all have to deal with the truth that God does not view our sufferings through our lens. His lens is eternity and divine purpose. Ours is usually self-preservation, comfort, and control, mixed with a sense of entitlement and a right to be happy.

He is the God who hears you. He is the God who sees you. He is the God who loves you. But He is also the God who is looking at your situation from within eternity.

And sometimes (not always), He will tell us to return to what we’re running from.

believing for wonderful

Different. Wrong. Abnormal. Words that describe how I have felt most of my life.

aloneThe struggle to feel right, or normal. Always, every day, in every circumstance, I felt different, somehow wrong inside. I never fit in anywhere. I didn’t belong. I was just small when someone did things to me they should not have done and told me not to tell and something inside of me shifted sideways and I never again felt what most people want to feel. Normal, right, okay…whatever words you want to use, I never felt any of them. I still don’t, but most people wouldn’t know it. It’s like walking around with a low-grade fever all the time. You’re the only one who knows there’s something wrong.

I never understood it, never knew what it was, I just knew it was there. It was how I lived my life. And it wore me out. But God knew and God cared so He reached out and touched something and it all came rushing out like dirty water. It came rushing out and when it did He named it shame and I knew, just knew, He was right.

And because He is good He had begun preparing me before any of this surfaced. He laid my eyes on Psalm 139:14 and something in me caught its breath as He asked me “when did it stop being true?”. I was still turning it over and over in my hands and in my head days later when the rushing like dirty water came up and out.

“I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” 

…and I knew the words I had laid my eyes on were a sword I was going to have to pick up. Because it cuts through shame and it severs the lie right out of any heart that is willing to believe with a let-go-and-fall-back kind of trust. Because it never stopped being true, not for a moment. Not before, and not after the thing that broke something inside of me. Nothing I did and nothing that was done to me turned Psalm 139:14 into a lie. Nothing.

fearfully. yare’. ‘in a wonderful manner’, or ‘wonderfully’…

wonderfully made. palah. ‘to be distinct, be separated, be distinguished, to be set apart. To be wonderful’.

(And I laugh as I see ‘wonderfully made to be wonderful’, and then I try not to cry as I hear Him whisper…)

“Beloved, you have wonderful all over you.”

(And you should laugh and then try not to cry because He’s talking about you and not just me.)

KONICA MINOLTA DIGITAL CAMERA

I am a work of God and therefore I am wonderful, and I will say it and say it until it rings true in my heart. Because wielding the sword is not done well unless it is done often. Over and over, until the lie is dead and truth lives in its place.

I will praise Him for what He has made.

I don’t know what you are dealing with or what broke something inside of you. I don’t know if you carry shame or if it is something else that makes you feel somehow wrong inside. I don’t know what lies you are believing. 

   Not good enough      Not pretty enough      Not smart enough  
  Unlovable     It’s all your fault      Not normal    
Unacceptable      Failure    Tainted   Used      Wrong
Bad      Stupid      Broken     Too much      Too little
 
 And it all goes down easy. We take it in and live our lives by it and never break a sweat.  A lie is spoken and it sounds just right to us so we take it and claim it and we let it call the shots.

But the truth is turned over in our hands, peered at from every angle, almost with suspicion.  And when finally we choose to believe that truth, it’s hard and we weep because we want so badly to believe it and it’s probably true for others but not for me, but we must choose. We must, no matter how hard, no matter how suspicious it seems, we must choose to let go and fall back into ‘fearfully and wonderfully‘ made. Because we want to be free.

Our hearts can easily memorize a lie but must work hard to remember truth and this is life in a fallen world.

It takes great effort to live by the truth.

wonderfullymade

Over and over…until you know this full well…

You are a wonderful work of God.

breaking_chains.208145743_std“For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.” 

Psalm 139:13-16