Dear Leah,
They said you had no sparkle in your eyes,
Weak and dull-looking and many other lies,
I wonder what you felt when you heard it all,
Shattered were those dreams of getting a man handsome and tall.
Even your father looked down at you,
And seeds of low self-esteem sprouted and grew,
In the soil of your heart with a painful hue,
Fertile with hurt and blame that people threw.
And then one day Jacob came along,
But he liked your sister with her hair so long,
I wonder whether you blamed God for all the wrong,
Or just cried out to Him to make you strong.
You were Jacob’s first wife but second in his heart,
But loving someone who doesn’t want you is definitely an art,
But you are not to blame, you father is,
For tricking Jacob into doing all this.
I wonder what you felt that morning,
When Jacob saw it is you and not his darling,
His shock directly proportional to the hurt you felt,
And you tried to think of ways to make his heart melt.
I am sorry that you had to go through all that shame,
To be called his wife with no value for your name,
How you had to constantly try hard to win the heart of your mate,
But you failed, nothing worked, not one bait.
God blessed you through all your struggle,
With children like olives to rid all your trouble,
Your faith in God grew,
With every child born to you,
And God made your sons known in history,
‘Tis true what they say of His plans, a mystery.
Thank you, Leah for teaching me to be loyal,
Even though Jacob saw you as an act of betrayal,
But maybe you tried too hard to impress your man,
And things might have not been as per your plan,
Yet, you showed me to give despite not being given any value,
And to love the ones who don’t love you.
Love,
The Unloved Woman
I have battled with insecurity for a very long time. Remnants of it still remain. Insecurity coupled with anticipation can do so much harm to a person. The battle is real; my pillow, bedspreads and bedroom walls have witnessed the struggle. It all started in my early teens after an incident involving a breach of trust. Although I moved on from that phase, insecurity and paranoia tagged along. It felt like a heavy rock on my chest. Past hurts can leave some scars which might take some time to fade off. But don’t keep rubbing it or pulling off the dry skin and not allow it to fade off.
Although there is no mention of Leah verbally declaring her love for Jacob or any sort of romantic encounter, I am pretty sure she loved Jacob very much and she must have done things to impress him. As for Rachel, she was pretty confident that her sister has no chance with Jacob; Rachel knew she was beautiful and that Jacob was madly in love with her. One good thing that happened in all of this is that Leah got closer to God.
“The deepest level of worship is praising God in spite of pain, thanking God during a trial, trusting Him when tempted, surrendering while suffering and loving Him when He seems distant”- Rick Warren
It is very hard to do it but the peace that God gives us when we depend on Him, surpasses all understanding. And Leah experienced that peace from God. Not once the Bible has mentioned that Leah was angry.
Genesis 29: 31- When the Lord saw that Leah WAS NOT LOVED, He enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless. Going further down to the next chapter and the first verse: “When Rachel saw that she was not bearing children, she became JEALOUS of her sister”
So, now we know that jealousy can hit even the confident lot. Jealousy is coupled with three things: Insecurity, anger and doubt. While Leah found her security in God, Rachel became insecure, angry and doubted God. I like how Leah was able to fight all her hurts and stay calm through all of this.
Moving forward to Jacob’s death bed in Genesis 49:31, he gives clear instructions on where to be buried and it was not next to Rachel; it was where Leah was buried. At some point, Jacob had fallen in love with Leah and she died not knowing it.
Most of us have a Jacob and a Rachel in our lives and it’s hard to fight the hurt. But that is where Leah teaches us this valuable lesson to be secure in the Lord and let Him take control of the relationship. It is hard because Rachel can be very beautiful and your Jacob might be on the run to pursue her and not you. Know that, ‘You are worth being pursued’ Toxic bonds can do a lot of harm to you. ‘Steal, kill and destroy’; It will steal your peace, kill your creativity and destroy your heart. When your partner is not sensitive to your feelings (even the silly ones) and does not cater to your emotional needs, leaving a gap for doubt and insecurity, that is when you know that nothing that you do with your human strength can fix it, only God can and He will if it is good for you. It would be so much easier if we could just rest in His love and be confident of the fact that no matter what we can always lean on His love. It would be so much easier if we could trust that God would take care of the other person.
“And the effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness and trust forever,” Isaiah 32:17. Quietness and trust forever! Woah, I wish I had that. Some versions say confidence. What is this confidence? It is letting God take over your relationship and just knowing that He will take good care of it. Now, this is hard, but not impossible. I learned it the hard way. I had carried so much pain and hurt inside of me that took me to a dark dingy place full of negativity. I felt lonely and the drive to do something radical died. All I wanted to was sleep and watch some junk on Netflix all day. Despite knowing the damaging effect of this phase, I chose to hang on. When you reach that point, a part of you profusely shouts, “CUT LOOSE” but then again there is another part of you that says, “maybe a little longer!” Most of us tend to listen to the wrong whispers and not believe in the loud evident signs. One of the dangerous effects that it has is the distance it creates between God and you. Sometimes, it is so difficult for us to understand that God wants to hear us whine and tell Him about all that we are going through. So, start telling Him all your worries, the ones people call silly, the ones that are hard to understand and the ones that only He would understand. As for us, let us create an environment where the ones around us feel secure.