Waiting in the Dark

Hi Friends,

I've been working on my new book this week and have been revisiting the story of Sarah when she was taken by Pharaoh. So I was reading some of what I wrote in Waiting for Wonder, and came upon these helpful thoughts about encountering Christ in the dark places of our lives. I found these words helpful. Maybe you will too:

Who is this God who rescues us from the harem of Pharaoh, who stops at nothing to reach into our shadows and bring us into his light? Who is he who calls us by our names and tolerates no deceptions? 

Who is he?

He is God of Sarai.

He is God who stopped a crowd to look a healed woman in the face, to call her by her true name. Matthew 9, Mark 5, and Luke 8 tell about a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. No doctor could heal her. She had no money, no cure, no hope. Like Sarai, she was caught in the dark shadows of of circumstances that shut her away from her most precious relationships. She was untouchable. She could not go into the temple. And this disease was as powerful in her life as Pharaoh himself.

But she saw Jesus. She wiggled her way through the crowd that day. She touched the hem of his robe. And she was healed. She was free.

At that moment, she had everything she had come for, everything she hoped for.

She was finished.

Jesus was not.

He stopped the crowd. He turned. He looked around carefully to find her. And he said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you; go in peace, healed from your disease.” 

He called her Daughter. He called her his own.

Daughter, loved one, precious one, dear one. Daughter, the one you would give anything to save.

That’s who she was.

That’s who we are.

Healing is not enough. Rescue is not complete without restoration. Sarai is sent away with Abram only when her right relationship with him and with God is restored. The woman called “Daughter” is sent away only when Jesus has stopped the crowd to restore her to the community and to himself. Only when she is called by her true name - Daughter.

When no one saw her for who she was, Jesus did. Even now, we refer to her as “the woman with the issue of blood.” But Jesus didn’t call her that. He called her Daughter. And he made her whole.

So when you are waiting in the dark, when hope seems lost, when circumstances are beyond your control, when God’s promises seem like a distant dream, he is coming to rescue you. You are his precious one. 

All you may be wanting is your situation fixed, but he is offering so much more. He will stop the world to look you in the face, love you, and call you his child. 

No matter where you are, what you’ve done, what’s been done to you ... He names you as his own. You will be called out of Pharaoh’s harem and set free. 

Reach out to touch the hem of his cloak, and wait for your redeemer.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

Helen H. Lemmel, 1922