Seeing our afflictions

Imagine the sorrow of Hagar. She is suffering abuse from Sarah, the wife of the man whose son she is carrying. Her Ishmael has been demoted to second place in his father's affections, and her own hopes of a prominent role in the history of Israel are dashed. She flees from her mistress into the wilderness, as utterly alone as anyone we will come across in the pages of holy writ.

But in this side panel of history, in this remote outpost of the drama of salvation, the Angel of the Lord comes to her: "Hagar, servant of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?" She explains her situation (which of course He already knows). He speaks a word to her about her future and the son she will bear and what she shall name him: Ishmael. That is, He gives her a future hope.

Then Hagar called on the name of the Lord and said, "You are a God of seeing. . . . Truly here I have seen him who looks after me" (Genesis 16:13). And she named the well that she was near "Beer-lahai-roi," which means, "Well of the Living One who sees me."

Recently I heard my friend Andrea give her testimony before a roomful of women. It was rough and she delivered it with dignity and serenity. The incest from her father began when she was 7, and his last attempt was when she was 21. By age 8 she was praying for male genitalia, because if she were a boy her father would not do this to her. He told her for years, every time he came to her, "You know daddy loves you and would never hurt you." He told her he believed in reincarnation, and that in a previous life he had been married to her."

With that nice little gateway, Satan had a field day with Andrea for decades: a failed first marriage, abortion, lesbianism, emptying the liquor cabinet, coming to in a bathtub with water running red from her own flesh wounds.

Then the Lord came---Beer-lahai-roi came---and He lifted her up out of the pit of destruction, out of the miry clay, and set her on a rock and established her steps. He also put a new song in her mouth: praises to our God. Many have seen and put their trust in the Lord (Psalm 40).

And I am just grateful that God kept me from seeing Andrea at age 7, or 9, or 11, because I am afraid I would have thought He was evil. I still do not understand. But I have enough years behind me now to have learned what Jacob learned (Genesis 31:42) and what Hagar learned---that the Angel of the Lord sees our afflictions. And just knowing he knows is wonderful.

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