Recently I have been reading in the bible about Jacob and his wives - Leah and Rachel. We all know the story that Jacob loved Rachel and so he worked for her father for 7 years before he could marry her. But her father switched Rachel for his less lovely daughter Leah (thought it seems her only flaw was that she had weak eyes) - so Jacob married Rachel and worked another 7 years to pay the debt.
The thing that got me thinking was the verses that came next regarding the children of both women. Genesis 29:31 says "When the LORD saw that Leah was not loved, he opened her womb, but Rachel was barren. 32 Leah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Reuben, [b] for she said, "It is because the LORD has seen my misery. Surely my husband will love me now."
It seems to me that God in a way punished Rachel because she was beautiful and was loved by her husband - God took away her ability to have children and blessed Leah instead. Does this mean that God's form of justice takes happiness from some because they simply have too much blessing in their life? It wasn't Rachel's fault that she was more beautiful than Leah yet her happiness cost her her children for a period of time (Rachel eventually had two sons - Joseph and Benjamin).
I truly believe God has plans for each of our lives, mine included, but it does make me wonder about the equality of it all.
Maybe too much happiness is a bad thing - maybe it makes us ambivalent to the sadness of others. You can't deeply empathise with loss until you have seen someone you love disappear from your world. You cannot understand loneliness until you have been alone - staring at the empty side of the bed, wondering if it will ever be filled. You cannot understand disappointment until you have seen your dreams dropped away and lost, one by one.
Anyway - just some thoughts for today from Linda!
No comments:
Post a Comment