Dear Rebekah,
Your love story, retold times without number,
A charming record, that creates wonder,
The perfect arranged marriage that still holds appeal,
The divine union, orchestrated with God behind the wheel
Your kindness rewarded you with love,
A man you never met, a cloud of curiosity above,
And you must have thought “How?”
But somehow to the proposal you did bow
Your heart must have skipped a beat,
When you saw Isaac standing at a distance to greet,
The one you waited for, the much-awaited meet,
I am sure it must have been beautiful and sweet
You were barren for some time, your heart filled with grief,
Then Isaac went on his knees and to your relief,
Two nations were in your womb,
Like two sides of a parted leaf,
God said ‘The older would serve the younger’,
In that, you had no unbelief
To Jacob you were biased
and you wanted him to be the highest,
So a plan you cunningly scripted,
For your favourite to get the blessings,
but the manner, wicked
Thank you, Rebekah, for teaching me to wait on the Lord,
A lesson that kindness is a trait that is most adored,
In your barrenness you prayed,
but when it came to Jacob’s case, you strayed.
You forgot the Lord’s promise,
And took matters in your hands,
Didn’t you know that God is faithful,
He fulfills all His plans,
Fooled your husband,
Thought he was the kind who never understands,
if only you spoke to him, placed all your demands
You were a support to Isaac when his mother died,
But what did you do when he became blind? —You tricked him, you lied,
Your charm and kindness, your modesty and meekness,
And all the attributes that added value to your uniqueness,
All evaporated with one conniving plan, like vinegar poured into sweetness,
Brought in hurt, pain and sorrow, ceaseless,
If only you stood sincere till the end of the story,
But your specks of bias garnished it with agony.
Love,
The Biased Woman
We all have our favourites, don’t we? Favourite brand, favourite diner, favourite person! I had a favourite person too. But that was until a couple of years back. We had a favourite place, a favourite eatery and a favourite theatre. Then one day, my favourite person turned against me and found another favourite. I was no longer wanted by that person. Let me rephrase that—my favourite person wanted someone else who was not me. For a couple of weeks after that, I showed signs of withdrawal and anxiety. “Was I not good enough?” “Why God?” “Do I deserve this?” If there was a crown for the best whiner in heaven, I would get it. But I am also sure that God likes it that the first to know all my woes is Him. Most times, our favourites tend to let us down. Each of us are uniquely favourite to God and each of us uniquely hurt Him through our deeds—thank God for His mercies are new every morning otherwise by now each of us would have been uniquely condemned and punished. For me, the hardest bit to digest was “God still loves that person who left me.”
“No God! You can’t! Don’t You see what happened to me? Your daughter!”—every now and then I play the daughter card. “Am I not Your favourite?”—Gosh! I need so much of reassurance sometimes. We often tend to talk a lot about how unfair life is and what we deserve, but do you think God doesn’t know that? I read this quote in one of the Instagram posts of a Christian blogger— “This mountain is placed before you to show that it can be MOVED.” As humans, we are bound to go through struggle and crisis; where there are two or more people, hurt and pain is present. But God causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Mathew 5:45). There is no bias in Him. It may sound a little unfair to us but that is what it means to have UNCONDITIONAL LOVE.
In the case of Rebecca, her favourite son was Jacob. Probably because he hung out with her a lot—helped her with cooking, washed the dishes, cleaned the house. A mother sure does like a son who can give her a hand in household chores. His elder brother on the other hand must have been that rugged, ‘hardly-ever-home’-hunter sorts. When it was time for the blessings, Isaac must have discussed what he was going to do and Rebecca must have been not happy with the decision, hence, she acted instead of negotiating the allocation of blessings. If only she talked to her husband; if only she asked God for justice to happen instead of taking matters into her own hands. Sometimes, we decide what is wrong and what is right, instead of asking God. We, in our own knowledge, try to act upon it and sometimes end creating even more confusion. In my case, I told myself to forgive that person and cut off the chord—the chord of bitterness and hurt. They say, fight the battle and not the person. But again, even this battle belongs to the Lord, doesn’t it? As for me, I am just going to lie down and sleep. God is working the night shift.
P.S: Your worth is not defined by being somebody’s favourite. God calls you worthy even when nobody else thinks you are.