Women across the world are taking nine month journeys. Journeys of development, growth, and change. Let me tell you about a woman named Hagar, who went on a nine-month journey. Hagar is the servant to Sarai and her husband Abram. When Sarai finds out she can’t have children she proposes the thought, “perhaps I can have children through her” and tells Abram to take her as his wife. Hagar becomes pregnant with Abram’s baby and starts avoiding Sarai. This is not what Hagar had signed up for. Hagar didn’t look for this to happen, Abram found her. No matter what Sarai thought or did Hagar was changing. This baby was growing inside of her. It was changing her shape and changing her cravings. Hagar didn’t know how to treat Sarai because now she feels that her fertility exalts Sarai’s infertility. Neither one now know how to act in front of one another so they both start treating each other badly. Hagar feels the problem is living inside of her and starts to believe the lie that she is the problem.
Sarai’s first instinct is to blame Abram. “This is all your fault. Hagar is pregnant and now she’s treating me with contempt.” I picture Abram putting his hands up while he says, “She’s is your servant. You handle this.” In Genesis 16:6 it says, “Then Sarai treated Hagar so harshly that she finally ran away.” Finally ran away. It makes me sad that Hagar, who had a seemingly good relationship with Sarai before all this felt she had no option but to ‘remove the problem’ from Sarai’s life by running. Then God stops her and asks, “where are you coming from and where are you going?” How many situations would we stay in and resolve if we stopped for long enough to ask ourselves these questions? Hagar answers neither of these questions when she talks to the Lord, she tells Him what she is running from. Jesus tells her to go back home and He will bless her. When Hagar gave birth to her baby, she named him Ishmael meaning God hears. Now Hagar refers to the Lord as “the One who sees” because in a time of destruction and feeling distraught, God looked her in the eyes and told her to take a deep breath and slow down. “Where are you coming from and where are you going?”
I’ve been a runner. I am a relational runner. When things that were good turn bad I run. I’ve done this for years. I often run for so long I forget things turned bad and run back to it. I have spent years buying into the lie that I am the problem and running would make all things better. I ran myself onto this race if we’re just being honest. Here’s the thing: no matter where you run your problems are unavoidable because you are not the problem. I ran to Ecuador, India, and Zambia but everything came with me. In January of India, I tried to run home. When the Lord said, “let’s slow down. Where are you coming from and where are you going?” I said, “screw this.” This is when I thank Jesus for the people He passed me to evaluate these questions for me. When I came on this race, Jesus planted passions and desires inside of me that I didn’t exactly go looking for. These desires and passions have changed my shape and my cravings. They’ve spent nine months being molded and no matter where I run or how hard I try, these suckers are coming out. I’m accepting the love of God and some of that means giving birth and going home to things I’ve asked him to remove. I think going home means being unapologetic for the passions He has planted and giving them the light they deserve. God is sending me home shape changed, cravings different with the desires inside of me wide awake.
