I remember as a kid having a recurring nightmare where I would come home from school to find that everyone had moved. I was left alone and I didn’t know where they had gone. You can try to psychoanalyze me about this but I have no reason or explanation for the dream. And it left no lasting scars. It was just weird. Maybe it was like the fear of public speaking only in twisted dream form.
I wonder if Sarai felt that way when her husband asked her to lie for him whenever they entered a strange new land and he felt threatened? Genesis 12:13 is one example when Abram led his family into Egypt and feared Sarai’s beauty would get him killed.
You probably know the story. The pharaoh did hear about Sarai’s beauty, did take her into his harem, and treated Abram well because of her. God had to step in to get Sarai set free. Abram didn’t own up to the truth and neither did Sarai. Still, have you ever wondered how Sarai felt through all of this? (And this was not the first time. See Genesis 20:13.)
Everywhere they went, from the time God called Abram to go where God would lead him, Abram had asked Sarai to tell people she was his sister. Perhaps he reasoned that he wasn’t wrong in doing so because she truly was his half-sister, but she was also his wife. And twice she was taken into the harem of a foreign king, abandoned to a future she could not see.
I will admit I struggle with this kind of thinking on Abram’s part and also with Sarai’s agreement to go along with it. Even after she’d been captured by the pharaoh, she continued the ruse throughout their travels. If it were me? I would have had one long discussion with my husband! I mean really. Are you kidding me?
While Sarai might have wondered why Abram didn’t just trust God to protect him, Sarai wasn’t quite the great example of trust herself. So maybe they both understood each other better than I do. Well, yes. I’m sure they did! But when Sarai sat alone in that harem, fearing the future, wondering what next, did she feel abandoned by her husband?
Have you ever lived through a time in your life when you were left out, rejected by someone you loved, betrayed by someone you trusted, abandoned by the people who should have cared for you? Those are the kinds of questions I pondered as I imagined Sarai’s story.
I’ve written about her in the Wives of the Patriarchs series, but in this book, I looked at her from a little different perspective. I hope you will consider her plight and her reactions to her life circumstances. Perhaps an attempt to understand her, will help us better understand ourselves.
Until next time~
#whenlifedoesn’tmatchyourdreams #february2019 #sarai #livegrace
