I love the story of Leah and Rachel from the Bible, in Genesis 29. During my year and a half long separation before my divorce, I recall reading a devotional from Proverbs 31 ministries, and it deeply struck a chord with me.
The summary of the story is this…
There were two sisters, Leah and Rachel. Leah was the eldest, and was not very attractive. Rachel was the younger sister, who was wanted by many. Jacob wanted to marry Rachel. Laban, the father of Rachel and Leah, agreed to let Jacob marry Rachel, but then tricked Jacob into marrying Leah. Jacob did end up marrying Rachel afterwards, but Laban’s excuse was that the youngest could not marry until the oldest did first. So Jacob got a two-in-one deal that he wasn’t really asking for.
I don’t know about you, but being a sister wife sounds awful. No woman ever wants to be put in the position to compete with another, so you can imagine how they might have felt. However, Laban had put his two daughters in this situation and it was clear that Rachel was much more loved by Jacob. God saw that Leah was unloved, had compassion for her and opened her womb. The story goes on to explain how after each child, she acknowledges the gift from God, and then says, “now my husband will love me.” It was finally after birthing the last child that instead of focusing on her husband’s lack of love, that she finally recognized the blessing that God had given to her apart from her husband’s love, not to GET her husband’s love, that she turned and said, “this time I will praise the Lord.” And then her womb closed up because she finally saw what God had done for her.
Let me tell you why it struck a chord with me.
I never felt loved in my first marriage. I never felt wanted or cared for, or like I mattered. I barely felt like he wanted to be around me most days, much less spend time alone with just me. I spent much of that marriage feeling rejected.
Now, during that marriage, we had been back and forth on whether or not to get start a family but at the time that he left, we were moving into a new single family home, with the intent to start a family shortly after. However, my struggle was this – if I had kids, I would lose what little I had of my husband – but at the same time, I still wanted to have kids. However, until I read that devotional, I never truly understood one of my motivations in that marriage for wanting to have kids…
So that my husband might love me.
These days, I still want to have kids, but for much different reasons now than before. I actually couldn’t even imagine having kids any earlier in life because what I have and know now to teach and raise them is so much more and valuable than what I would have been doing before. Having kids in my 20’s would have would have been like the blind leading the blind. I just can give so much more now, than I would have in my early 20’s. It was actually shortly after the separation was initiated that God showed me that one of his purposes in getting married, and a part of why He hates divorce, was that one of the purposes of marriage was to have kids so that we might raise Godly children.
A timely conviction, if you ask me. The realization was that having kids wasn’t just for me, it was for Him (God). All that, just in time for that marriage to end! I’m sure God had his reasons that I’ve speculated over, as to why He chose that moment to share that with me.
Over the past few years, I held these two things in my heart – the realization of one of my motives and also one of God’s purposes of marriage, and carried on holding them dearly. Like anything, God heals and works in layers. So, of course, the story of Leah and Rachel came up again this past year!
Let me start by saying – I can’t tell you how hard it is to hear, “The mother of my children” sometimes. It just hurts, because I am the mother of no one’s children. I am not a mother, and I want to be.
Mother’s day, has been painful for me for the past few years. Firstly, because it was the first weekend after my ex-husband left and said he wanted a divorce – but I do believe that I did a lot of healing over the last year and that this is no longer much of an issue for me. However, it is still a reminder of a desire unfulfilled. A dream I’ve lost of motherhood that might not ever materialize. Especially considering, I really have no idea what Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome will bring me, and if infertility will be one of my struggles. It really might not be in the cards for me, and I know that.
So recently, someone posted a clip on Facebook, comparing the Leah and Rachel story to doing the hard & important work of God versus the work we are passionate about for God. It wasn’t meant to be a bad post – it was saying that we had to do more things like “Leah” – the not so pretty work. But for some reason, it dug at me. So I went back to the story. This time, I saw something different.
I was reading it, and re-reading it… and then I realized that it didn’t matter that Leah was the mother of Jacob’s children. He just didn’t love her like he loved Rachel. She still didn’t hold that place of importance in his heart. Leah gave him something that was very valuable – children! Yet, he still just didn’t love her. His love for Rachel was not connected to her ability to have kids, nor did it have anything to do with what she could give him.
Then the revelation hit – the hidden belief that I had never been able to uncover on my own, apart from God.
I saw that there was a part of me hanging onto a painful belief – which was that I believed I had to give something in order to be loved, or to be considered important to someone. Motherhood. Praise God for bringing that to the light!
See, the truth is that Rachel didn’t have to do anything to get or earn that love, just like we don’t have to do anything to earn God’s love. God knew that Leah couldn’t earn her husband’s love – but that’s why he chose to bless her in a different way, even if He couldn’t give her what she wanted.
That is absolutely what I needed to see in order to come full circle. We can’t earn love or importance in someone’s heart. That’s not how it works. I am loved by God because of who I am to him – his daughter – not because of what I can do for him. I do things for God because I love Him not TO get Him to love me. Now that this falsehood has been brought into the openness of my mind and heart for me to deal with, I can honestly say that I am relieved that my motives for motherhood are that much more pure.
I hope that one day, if I get married again, that I might be lucky enough to be shamelessly loved by a man simply because of who I am to him – his wife, Nancy! Similarly, I hope I get to return the love to my unknown future husband, kids or step-kids, because of who they are, and who they are to me – if that is what’s in God’s great plans! I pray they are!
For the friends that I have who are going through infertility or otherwise – don’t let this lie add to your pain like it did to mine. Motherhood or no motherhood – we are so loved because of who we are, not what can produce!
This was the devotional:
https://proverbs31.org/read/devotions/full-post/2019/12/02/no-longer-unloved
and if you want to see the scripture, where it all came from…
More Than You Can Ask For Blog 