Over the last week I have been reading the book of Genesis. I started the story of Jacob this week and hadn't really taken anything away from it until I began thinking about something that I heard last year. Last year at my church in New Jersey I heard a minister named Dr. David Minor speak on the Leah's in our lives. He was talking about the things that happen to us or we get stuck with that we'd like to go back and erase or just forget existed altogether. He spoke about how Jacob had labored, hard, for seven years for Rachel, Leah's younger, more beautiful, sister. When the seven years he had worked were over he expected to receive Rachel in return for his hard work. Instead his crooked uncle Laban gave him Leah instead. Jacob was understandably upset. He loved Rachel and he had worked really hard with the expectation of marrying Rachel. It's interesting to me that Jacob's name means deceiver. He had to flee from home to avoid being killed by his brother after deceiving their father for his brother's blessing. But I'm sure that's a different blog for a different day. But even though Jacob had been deceived by Laban and hadn't gotten what he had been working for all those years he couldn't give Leah back, she was now his wife. And he completed another seven years of work for Rachel but he was still stuck with Leah. Leah was unwanted. She was the older sister, the less beautiful sister, and just not the one that Jacob had wanted. But it's interesting to see how even though Leah was unwanted she remained with Jacob until her death and they were eventually buried together. Leah bore Jacob six sons, half the tribe of Israel, and she outlived the more beautiful Rachel, who died giving birth to Jacob's last son. It's interesting that Leah, the one he didn't want, was the one that was with him the longest. And Dr. Minor pointed out that most likely in his old age Leah brought Jacob comfort. Even though he didn't want her in the beginning she became a constant in his life and probably someone that he came to depend on as he got older.
When I started thinking about this it made me think of how there are dreams that we all have and sometimes we are crazy enough to pursue them. They seem out of reach because they take a long time to happen but then when they seem to be close to being grasped there's a shift or an unexpected or unwanted occurrence. Maybe it's a delay or you find yourself saying, "This would be perfect if only..." or maybe it's a surprise. I read Priscilla Shirer's book Life Interrupted last year and she spoke about how she felt like things were going along smoothly and then one day she found out that she was having a third child which she had not expected. In addition to having an addition to their family the timing just was not convenient for her and her family, her husband and two young sons. She worried about having another child in addition to the responsibilities that she already had but eventually just got on board with the plan. I wonder if that is what happened with Jacob. He probably resented Leah in the beginning because even though it was her father's idea to have her marry Jacob she didn't say anything. My Women's Devotional Bible devotion on this story says that we can never know if Leah was a willing participant or not but the fact of the matter is that she went through with it. But maybe eventually Jacob just accepted that Leah was as much his wife as Rachel and he just got on board with that fact. I think sometimes we spend a lot of time trying to resist Leahs from being in our lives. We spend a lot of time fighting them when we should accept them and know that there is a reason and purpose to them that perhaps we can't see at the very beginning but further up the road they will bring us comfort in lessons learned or experiences that are priceless to building character or giving us valuable insight. I have Leahs in my life for sure and I am not sure what they all have meant and do mean. But I hope that at some point in my life that I can accept these Leahs and not continually see them as unwanted.
When I started thinking about this it made me think of how there are dreams that we all have and sometimes we are crazy enough to pursue them. They seem out of reach because they take a long time to happen but then when they seem to be close to being grasped there's a shift or an unexpected or unwanted occurrence. Maybe it's a delay or you find yourself saying, "This would be perfect if only..." or maybe it's a surprise. I read Priscilla Shirer's book Life Interrupted last year and she spoke about how she felt like things were going along smoothly and then one day she found out that she was having a third child which she had not expected. In addition to having an addition to their family the timing just was not convenient for her and her family, her husband and two young sons. She worried about having another child in addition to the responsibilities that she already had but eventually just got on board with the plan. I wonder if that is what happened with Jacob. He probably resented Leah in the beginning because even though it was her father's idea to have her marry Jacob she didn't say anything. My Women's Devotional Bible devotion on this story says that we can never know if Leah was a willing participant or not but the fact of the matter is that she went through with it. But maybe eventually Jacob just accepted that Leah was as much his wife as Rachel and he just got on board with that fact. I think sometimes we spend a lot of time trying to resist Leahs from being in our lives. We spend a lot of time fighting them when we should accept them and know that there is a reason and purpose to them that perhaps we can't see at the very beginning but further up the road they will bring us comfort in lessons learned or experiences that are priceless to building character or giving us valuable insight. I have Leahs in my life for sure and I am not sure what they all have meant and do mean. But I hope that at some point in my life that I can accept these Leahs and not continually see them as unwanted.
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