Emotional Mishaps

We pick up Abraham’s story in Genesis 20, where we see him and his wife repeating the brother/sister “ruse” they’d used many years and eight chapters earlier. (See “Show Me You Love Me.”) This time, they are in a place called Gerar and Sarah is taken by King Abimelek. In the end, Abimelek not only returns Abraham’s wife but also gives him livestock, slaves, and money… as well as his choice of where to live in the land.

At last, comes the day of fulfillment for a long awaited and very exciting promise!

There’s always a lot of anticipation when it comes to pregnancy and childbirth but never more than that leading up to the arrival of Abraham’s and Sarah’s son, Isaac.

Referring back to an earlier lesson (Genesis 17: “Who’s in Charge Here?”)…

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord had appeared to him, giving the covenant of circumcision, assigning new names to Abram and Sarai, and promising Abraham both the land of Canaan (where they were then living) AND a son by his wife, Sarah.

Remember Abraham’s reaction?

If it sounded too good to be true, it wasn’t. God assured God Abraham:

In the next chapter (“Remarkable Hospitality”) the promise is reinforced, this time with Sarah laughing:

And now, incredible as it might have seemed, the day arrives!

“He will laugh”… what a wonderful name for this baby boy!

In the midst of all this joy, there’s trouble brewing .

I’m not sure how long Isaac nursed, but Abraham holds a big feast ON THE VERY DAY the little fellow is weaned! Here is where things take a bad turn….

Sarah sees Abraham’s older son, Ishmael (whose mother, Hagar, is Sarah’s slave) “mocking”.

Ishmael is about 14. Of course, “mocking” can be of a serious or threatening nature, but there isn’t an indication that this was the case. It’s also not unusual for “motherly sensitivities” to get a little prickly where our little ones (and sometimes not so little ones!) are concerned.

Beyond both of these factors, however, is an already unhappy history between Sarah and Ishmael’s mom. (See “Not Alone: Hagar.”) Whatever it was that prompted Sarah’s reaction to the “mocking,” she had a strong directive for her husband:

that woman’s son

will never share in the inheritance with my son.

We aren’t provided a rundown on Sarah’s emotional state, so we can’t really know all that lay behind her outburst.

We know she’d once jumped in to solve a problem (one that God already had under control, I might add) and helped create a situation that couldn’t be undone. Now, some 15 years later, she still wasn’t free from the repercussion and backlash.

Had Ishmael’s presence all those years been a constant reminder of a decision she couldn’t take back?

She has her own baby now; was having her husband’s older son in the picture putting a kink in her maternal joy? It sounds ugly, and it is… but I’m trying to imagine how I might feel in her shoes.

The one thing we know she has on her mind is what Ishmael means in terms of her son’s inheritance. I do hope there’s more to it than that.

The world is full of modern day scenarios of this very situation … complete with characters who would put a single mom and her teenage son on the street, not caring what danger or disaster could befall them. They’d do it in a heartbeat to avoid parting with the teen’s (rightful) share of the family money.

I don’t want to think of Sarah like that. Instead of believing she didn’t care about the consequences of her demand, I’d prefer to believe she didn’t think about them. I’d like to think there were some unresolved emotional issues at work behind the scenes of her outburst… some smoldering emotions that got out of control. After all, isn’t that usually the case when we “get so mad we can’t see straight?”

Rampaging emotions have a tendency to run roughshod over logical thought. That’s why we count to ten when we’re angry; it’s the reason we avoid making big decisions in the midst of any kind of emotional upheaval.

But sometimes we don’t count to ten; sometimes we make a rash decision instead of taking the time to summon our rational selves.

Has this ever happened to you?

We can get into the worst messes, and the most difficult are the ones we create ourselves. The residual feelings of shame, guilt and regret don’t make things any easier. We are angry without anywhere to put the blame.

It’s embarrassing to admit our bitterness and resentment. If we fear the disapproval of others, it’s nowhere near as intimidating as acknowledging our anger at ourselves. We find ways to avoid looking at what we don’t to see. The problem is … ignoring what is “unpleasant” doesn’t make it go away. Time doesn’t heal all wounds.

Eventually, we end up acting out the emotions we can’t find another, more constructive way to express.

The worst part about storing up all that ugliness is that we aren’t the only ones who suffer the consequences when the dam breaks. We end up lashing out at the wrong person, some poor soul who had the misfortune of crossing our unhappy path at an inopportune moment.

Or … we blow a minor problem into a major issue.

I have certainly been guilty (more times than I want to remember) of acting out emotional issues I’d chosen to repress rather than resolve.

Angry outbursts that seem to come “out of nowhere”… seldom do.

Sometimes we are the perpetrators and sometimes the recipients of “less than stellar” behavior … most likely with some backstory that doesn’t excuse the acting out but at least explains it.

Hopefully, if we can be a little kinder toward ourselves in dealing with our own emotional mishaps, we can find within us the patience to be a little more forgiving of others who are, no doubt, struggling with their own.

Whether any of the rest of this lesson applies in Sarah’s case, this much is true: Her reaction put her husband in a tough position, since getting rid of “that slave woman” and her son also meant getting rid of his own.

At this point, things look pretty dire for Hagar and Ishmael, and they’re about to get worse.

Thankfully, the God of fulfilled promises is also the God of hope, even in the most desperate of situations. What a blessing for them, as well as for Abraham (and US!)

It won’t be the first time He’s redeemed a story that appears to be badly off course. And it won’t be the last!

Until next time, Kim