Good morning my fierce grit and grace-filled girlfriends, Let’s talk about rejection. I know, fun subject, eh? But we need to face it, somewhere along the line, we will experience this ugly beast.
This month we will study four (maybe more) courageous women, who all dealt with rejection, feeling unseen, forgotten, or nameless. The first remarkable woman we will dive into is a slave. She is used for her ability. She is taken advantage of, mistreated, and disregarded.
Read Genesis Chapter 16. It’s a whopping 15 verses!
Can any of us relate to a moment in time where we felt used for something we had to offer or something we could do for another? How about the feeling of being a resource and then used up after someone got what they wanted? But wait, there’s more; rejection and dismissal come after the abuse, leaving the wounded confused and empty. I have a flood of verses filling my mind, but I don’t want to exhaust you as a reader.
In Genisis 16, we find Haggar, the slave. She had young ovaries, a healthy womb, and zero say in how her girl bits were used. Her body was not her own. And one selfish moment flipped her world on its end. Sarai was tired of waiting for God to fulfill his promise, so she decided to take matters in her own hands, and as a gift to her husband, she gave Haggar to him to perform the “deed.” And the fallout from that moment is still being played out in our world today.
After Haggar fulfilled her “duty” of sleeping with old man Abe and conceiving; the one who used and abused her turned around and rejected her. The pain of being taken advantage of by someone you once trusted is catastrophic. Haggar and Sarai worked side-by-side for years. I can even imagine a form of friendship or respect that was built between the two women. But then one day, someone took their position or leadership to far and took advantage of the situation.
I am confident right now; a few of you are thinking of a moment when you, too, felt this form of trauma or betrayal. I know I am. But this is not where the story takes off. The story launches at the end of the chapter, where Haggar is devastated by the abuse. She ran away from the mistreatment of her master/mistress, but she can’t get away from its effects; she is pregnant, homeless, and broken. And this is where GOD SHOWS UP! Amid her mess, where no one came to her defense, and no one seemed to care about her heartache. BUT GOD!!! The Master and Creator of the universe saw her.
Verse 7, The angel of the Lord found Haggar. God went looking for an invisible woman, and he saw her. One thing that strikes me in this chapter is Haggar was near a spring BESIDE the road to Shur, but the last thing this poor woman felt was sure of herself or her future. We may be trying to escape a problem, but we are unsure as to where we are going. We are not yet on the road of certainty, only questions. And this is when God asks Hagar the question: “Where have you come from, and where are you going?”
Could you answer this question? To answer it accurately, one must confront the issue they are running from and know how to heal from the pain.
The love that our Heavenly Father lavished love on this invisible broken woman. It is beyond remarkable; its tender, compassionate and overflowing with promises for her future. The one thing that’s missing is judgment because the last thing a hurting person needs is a pointing finger.
And then, one of the most immense, most remarkable moments of history happens; an unnamed, unseen, irrelevant “woman” who has no rights gives God a name. She named God! Verse 13, She gave the name to the LORD who spoke to her, “You are the God who sees me.”
Hope is flooding the spring near the road to Shur, and now it’s overflowing with answers for this poor forgotten girl. Promises for her future, comfort for her pain, direction for her life, all come to this unseen, rejected soul¸.
Many of us will have seasons of feeling invisible. Be it by the hands and hurt of another or by life circumstances. One thing that can bring us value is when another comes to our defense. It makes us feel worthy, loved, important, or seen. So when injustices go unnoticed, we feel worthless, unimportant, or invisible.
Some of our hidden years are in parenting, buried in laundry, diapers, and ramen noodles. Some of us will feel the sting of an invisible illness, where we look healthy but are quietly suffering. And some will experience the unseen years of caregiving. Life gets put on pause. Your days do not belong to you, and perhaps your dreams are put on hold for an extended period of time.
But our Hope lies with a slave’s revelation; YOU ARE THE GOD WHO SEES ME!!!
My sweet sister friends, I don’t know the unseen pain you carry. The invisible baggage of heartache you pack around or the trauma you relive because you were not rescued. But I do know this; An invisible God sees our hidden pain. He reaches with unseen hands and heals unseen hurts. Rescue can come through healing, promises birth through trauma, and our brokenness draws heaven to its knees to bend down and scoop us up.
We are seen by an unseen God!
HE saw me, then I saw Him!!
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