Sarah

Sarah.

It’s my name.  It comes from the Bible.

Sarah was the wife of Abraham.  God told Abraham that he would be the father of a nation…that his descendants would outnumber the stars in the sky.  Sarah believed God in the beginning, but soon, she grew older, past her childbearing years, and she stopped believing.  It just seemed impossible that a woman her age would bear a child.  She displayed her lack of faith when she arranged for her servant to have Abraham’s child because she didn't believe she herself would be able to.  More proof of her disbelief came years later.  When God sent messengers to tell Abraham that Sarah would give birth to a son within the year, Sarah laughed.  She thought it ridiculous.  Impossible.  Yet within a year, she did indeed have a son, who God instructed her to call Isaac…it means “laughter”.

Instead of being patient and trusting, Sarah panicked that God would not fulfill his promise.  It seemed impossible, laughable even, that she could give birth at her age (she was 90 years old) and she took matters into her own hands.  Ishmael, the son born to Abraham and Sarah's slave, Hagar, would be a source of pain and bitterness in Sarah's life.  Not only that, but her actions, and the resulting birth of Ishmael, would bring about a conflict that continues to rage to this day over Israel. 

 

Those are some pretty hefty consequences. 

Sometimes, I find myself not believing.  Sometimes, I begin to panic (like, I can feel the fight or flight response start kicking in…seriously!). Perhaps it comes with the name.  Maybe, as a “Sarah”, it is my predestined lot to struggle with the burden of anxious waiting and doubting (and melodrama, apparently).  Or maybe it’s just that I’m human.  The bible is full of people like Sarah.  And so is history since the bible was written.  I’m sure we’ve all grown impatient with God’s timing at one time or another.  Well, take heart, we can glean some valuable lessons from the Biblical Sarah: 

   What God says He will do, He will do.  

  God’s timing, and His will, are superior to our own.  

   And nothing is too difficult for God

“I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, 

and in his word I put my hope.” Psalm 130:5