The Unloved Woman
When morning came, there was Leah! So Jacob said to Laban, “what is this you have done to me? I served you for Rachel, didn’t I?” Genesis 29:25
Leah, Jacob’s first wife, not his choice and not part of his plans, can be seen in the bible as the unloved woman. Perhaps she was unloved by everybody. Jacob didn’t love her. She was plain, and Jacob never pretended to notice Leah. So we see Leah was unloved by her father, because no father would have treated his daughter like that if he cared about the way she felt. Leah was manipulated and controlled by an uncaring father. Can you identify with that?
So why is this story relevant? It is especially relevant to any woman who feels unloved. It could be because of an unhappy relationship with her father. You have felt unloved as long as you can remember because you haven’t known a father love. Perhaps you feel unloved because of an unhappy relationship with a brother or a sister. It could be you feel unloved of a husband or because of another man who hurt you and rejected you. My word to you is this: God cares about that. Furthermore, this story is relevant not only to woman, but also to any man, any husband, any father. If you have been insensitive to a woman’s feelings and have underestimated the hurt she feels by her rejection, you may come to appreciate the depth of her pain.
We are all different, and because we do not share the same problems and weaknesses, we may feel it is hard to find someone else who will understand how we feel. The point is that God sees and understands, and to prove it, He sent His Son into the world, who lived on this earth, tempted at every point just as we are, yet He was without sin. And even if no one else understands, Jesus will understand completely. Do you know we can talk to Him and tell Him just what we’re feeling? No one ever cared for us like Jesus.
Excerpted from All’s Well that Ends Well (Authentic Media, 2005)
My Response to today’s devotional
Abba, first let me thank you for your Father love to me. Today I know this. For so very long I didn’t,… I rarely felt it from my dad, but you gave me or sent me those men to love me; Uncle Richard Allen Burns, Bishop W. W. Smith, Dr. Hylton L. James, these three and more, I thank you for.
You are my ideal father, your love and embrace I long for. May I learn how to do this for our girls, yes, even now; and for those you bless me to be a part of their lives, may I be that to them in your name and by your spirit.
For those men and women who are unloved, because they are too ‘plain, or ordinary, not too intelligent, or even not too beautiful” they too are longing to be loved, may I be one of those who by your spirit becomes a ‘spiritual father’ and friend as these men were to me. For those like Leah who feel unloved, be there Jesus, (I know you are,) but may they ‘feel’ your presence and be reminded of your love for them.
For those of us who even now feel rejected by society by those we’ve known or met, because of our race, class or education status, position in society, that we too may we know we are embraced by you and those who love you. While we love and serve the poor and unloved, as we work and try so very hard and are ‘walked over’ as if we don’t exist, give us courage and grace to love one more day in your name.
I confess that I too have been insensitive to my family, trying to care for those in ministry, forgive me. It matters not what ‘the world’ thinks of me, when they lie broken in their hearts because of what I felt called to do. I can’t know their pain.
Oh how good we have become at covering our pain of being a Leah, the unwanted one, the rejected. Oh, the pain our heart feels. Help me to draw close to you and to them where possible, help me repair some of the damage. Where not, you be their loving, caring embracing father, lover and friend in a very real way.
Abba, you get me and us. You love me, as I am and where I am; you won’t leave me alone here forever. I may be ‘an outsider, or the other,’ to some, but not to you. Unloved perhaps by those who are so very much like me without knowing it, yet by you, Abba, because of Jesus, you love me in ways I’m just finding out, and yes, feeling. I am important to you. Have I forgotten who you are? You are God, the creator of heaven and earth, and in Jesus, you not only know about me, you became like me. Not only to save me from sin, but to walk with me through every pain and empty moment of my life.
The words, thank you are so few but filled with real meaning and joy. Help me to pass on your grace, love and mercy to these the unloved that I meet each day. May I be so much like you, that they see and sense you, present in this and other moments, Jesus it’s not me but you.
Thank you for loving me, the unloved, unappreciated, under-valued, ordinary looking, not so smart or handy. Thank you for a love I not only know but feel (sense) as well. I love you Abba, because you started it first, I only hope to be as much as you want and will me to be. AMEN!
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