"A DIFFERENT KIND OF WOMAN" Genesis 21... Sarah's promise fulfilled.

   ¹ Now the LORD was gracious to Sarah as he had said, and the LORD did for Sarah what he had promised. ² Sarah became pregnant and bore a son to Abraham in his old age, at the very time God had promised him. ³ Abraham gave the name Isaac^[a] to the son Sarah bore him. ⁴ When his son Isaac was eight days old, Abraham circumcised him, as God commanded him. ⁵ Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him.

 ⁶ Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.” ⁷ And she added, “Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.”

Genesis 21: 1-7

This first verse of this passage just makes me smile. The Lord DID for Sarah what He has PROMISED. As a woman we judge our worth sometimes on how people come through for us. If the people in our lives keep their word with us that means that we were worth it to them. If they do not, we get the message that we are not worth their effort. The showed Sarah that she was worth it. He was going to keep his promise to her to give her a son, even though the circumstances were not ideal. 

 God can seriously do anything. He made a promise to Sarah to bless her and her husband with an inheritance of children. But they were old! How could this really happen? Sarah was completely aware of her limitations. She has a grasp on the reality of the situation. Circumstances were not favorable for her having a child! That was obvious to her and everyone around her. But, I think she still trusted in her God to keep His promise. God blessed Sarah with a son, and she was over the moon excited! I love what she says about the situation...

 ⁶ Sarah said, “God has brought me laughter, and everyone who hears about this will laugh with me.”

I understand why people pay money to go to comedy clubs. At the end of a long week, just laughing sounds like the most amazing activity in the world. When you are laughing you are not stressed or worried or thinking about anything else but how hilarious and joyful that thing that made you laugh is! Laughter is an amazing and wonderful gift, and God gave that gift to Sarah. I think that Sarah's laughter came from a place or awe, joy, fulfillment, amazement, stunnedness, and maybe even a bit of comedy. I love that Sarah had a good laugh. I am happy for her. :) 

What I learn from this passage about God gifting Sarah with a fulfilled promise and laughing, is to look for these things in my own life. I believe that wants to fulfill his promises to all of his women and give us laughter, but sometimes I miss the chance to receive it because of my lack of seeking Him. I want to seek the Lord more about every little thing in my life so that I can see His promises fulfilled in my life so that my joy can be complete like Sarah's and I can LAUGH! Darn it! I LOVE laughing! What does a different kind of woman look like? She looks confident in knowing that her God will fulfill every promise He has made her, and when He does (and even in the mean time) she will laugh because of her joy being completely full.

"A DIFFERENT KIND OF WOMAN" Genesis 20... Sarah and Abraham, at it again.

   As I continue my study on what it means to be a "different kind of woman" I find myself in Genesis 20. Here is a small part to let you know what is going on...


Now Abraham moved on from there into the region of the Negev and lived between Kadesh and Shur. For a while he stayed in Gerar, ² and there Abraham said of his wife Sarah, “She is my sister.” Then Abimelek king of Gerar sent for Sarah and took her.

 ³ But God came to Abimelek in a dream one night and said to him, “You are as good as dead because of the woman you have taken; she is a married woman.”

Genesis 20: 1-3

   Abraham is at it again with his little narrative. It saved them last time, why not try it again with this king! Even though Abraham's narrative about being Sarah's brother is the same, how is all plays out is quite different. God spoke to the king Abimelek in a dream to warn him not to lay a hand on Sarah. This leads me to believe that Abimelek's heart may have been a bit softer to the Lord than Mr. Pharaoh. But, let's move on to what we can learn about being a woman from this particular story. 

 ¹⁴ Then Abimelek brought sheep and cattle and male and female slaves and gave them to Abraham, and he returned Sarah his wife to him. ¹⁵ And Abimelek said, “My land is before you; live wherever you like.”
 ¹⁶ To Sarah he said, “I am giving your brother a thousand shekels^[a] of silver. This is to cover the offense against you before all who are with you; you are completely vindicated.”
 ¹⁷ Then Abraham prayed to God, and God healed Abimelek, his wife and his female slaves so they could have children again, ¹⁸ for the LORD had kept all the women in Abimelek’s household from conceiving because of Abraham’s wife Sarah. Genesis 20:14-18


   The tone of this chapter is very different to me than the tone of Genesis 12 that we talked about in the last blog. From the passage above I just get a sense that Abraham and Sarah are more one unit. The Lord is protecting them both, and taking care of them as a couple. And there is even more of a focus on Sarah here. The passage says that the LORD kept all the women in Abimelek's household from conceiving because of Abraham's wife Sarah. I don't know whether this was for Sarah's protection or as more of a curse on Abimelek's house because of him taking Sarah as a potential wife. But, God acted on behalf of Sarah, that much is clear.
   This makes complete sense to me based on what happens in Genesis chapter 17...
   ¹⁵ God also said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you are no longer to call her Sarai; her name will be Sarah. ¹⁶ I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; kings of peoples will come from her.” Genesis 17: 15,16

   God officially blesses Abraham's life, and his wife's! He even changes her name from Sarai to Sarah! What a beautiful and personal thing for the Lord to do for woman. He is saying, "You are mine, you are now DIFFERENT. Your life will never be what it once was because you belong to me, and I am your God, and you can count on me." And in Chapter 20, the Lord proves that He meant what He said. 

   What can I learn here about being a "different kind of woman"? When the Lord calls us women to follow after Him, and we choose Him, we are officially different. Sarah got a different name, and sometimes I think it would be beneficial to us to rename our own selves, or to at least think of ourselves as completely different than the women we were yesterday. If we are seeking the Lord and following hard after Him, He is changing us, protecting us, and blessing us daily. We are extremely important to Him, and He will go to great lengths to make sure that we know that, and that the world around us knows that we belong to Him. 

   Thanks for reading. Be different today you beautiful women, be different. 

"A DIFFERENT KIND OF WOMAN" Genesis 12... Sarai

   Today I am continuing my study of what the Bible tells me about being "A DIFFERENT KIND OF WOMAN". My method is simply to go through scripture and seek out every passage that holds the word "woman." Study those verses, and ask the Lord to reveal to me what I need to learn about being a woman from that particular passage. 
  Today I am in Genesis chapter 12. The story is about Abraham heading into Egypt to get some food because of a famine. He has all of his possessions with him, including his wife Sarai. Sarai was beautiful, the Bible says. So beautiful that Abraham thought that Pharaoh kill him just to have her! Now, THAT is some beautifulness right there. She must have been obviously good looking. These leads me to these thoughts...
    I wonder what "beautiful" looked like back then. I think maybe it would fallen under the category that we have in our culture of "natural beauty" of some sort anyways, or maybe not at all. I also think that it is so interesting that beauty has been acknowledged for so, so long. I think that speaks to the fact that beauty itself was created by God. Beauty is not something that comes from us. Not from our fashion, makeup, surgeries, salon visits, ANYTHING. (Some of you just rolled your eyes, but seriously. Just think about that for a minute.) This lady, Sarai was so stunning that her husband thought that when they stepped foot into this new country that surely word of how stunningly beautiful she was would reach the Pharaoh and Pharaoh would want her so bad that he would kill Abraham. Abraham was just excepting this as absolute FACT! She was BEAUTIFUL. And do you think that Sarai had purchased her beauty from any of the above sources that I named? What her make up simply that awesome? Or don't you think that it is safe to assume that she just WAS beautiful? A gift from her Creator. She was made beautiful enough to make her hubs fear for his wife to be stolen and himself to be killed off. God creates beauty, and He had created it, clearly, in Sarai. 
   So, Abraham decides that if he poses as Sarai's BROTHER that everything would be cool. He might even get some free swag bag out of the deal...



 "¹⁴ When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman. ¹⁵And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace. ¹⁶ He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.
 ¹⁷ But the LORD inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai. ¹⁸ So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife? ¹⁹ Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!” ²⁰ Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had."
   Genesis 12:14-20

   So, Abraham lies to the Pharaoh in Egypt which keeps Abraham safe, sends his wife into the palace to become another man's wife, so the Lord punishes Pharaoh because of all of this. 
   When I first read this, I was a bit confused. My inner "right and wrong" monitor was telling me that there is something not quite right about all of this. Abraham lied, should he not be punished for that? And he put his wife through some stuff too, I mean, she seemed at first to me to be "used" by Abraham. But then I asked the Lord to show me what I should learn from this story. And I felt Him saying for me to look up into the first part of this chapter...


² “I will make you into a great nation,
   and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
   and you will be a blessing.^[a]
3 I will bless those who bless you,
   and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
   will be blessed through you.”<sup>[b]

Genesis 12: 2-3




   I believe that the "moral to the story" so to speak is that God took care of Abraham. He promised that He would just 12 verses earlier, and God does not break His promises. 
   So,what am I to learn about being a woman from this story? Sarai trusted her husband Abraham to make that tough, and scary decision to even go into Egypt, and then to lie about her being his wife. She trusted him, said nothing, (that we can see anyways) showed her husband that she was going to be by his side, even if that meant that she would not LITERALLY be for awhile. Sarai didn't know that the lie would work, or that even SHE would not be killed herself! But she let her husband be the leader of her home, like God intended, and in the end, the Lord took care of them both. Man, I would have had a HARD time going along with THAT plan. Hats off to you Sarai. 
   What does this mean for me as a woman? in my own story? This just reminds me to honor the position that the Lord has put my husband in, in the big things as well as the small. How many of our husbands have outlandish plans and schemes like Abraham? Um, all of them do! If you have yet to experience one, you just have not been married long enough, don't worry, it will come. And when it does come, know that the Lord has placed your husband over you, as the leader of your home. That is simply the structure that God has created. And it is your awesome chance as a woman to let your husband HAVE that role. He has it, but we do not always, as wives, honor it, or even allow it. 
   I pray for my husband, that he will be blessed by the Lord just like Abraham, and I believe that he will be. And there may be times when I am asked, as his wife, to trust in what my husband believes to be the right thing to do, and what I learned from Sarai today is that it is my amazing responsibility to support his decision. 
   As a believer in Christ, I am different than what the world perceives a woman to be. And this is one very obviously different belief that sets me apart as a believer in my God. A different kind of woman.</sup>