Muddy Water

Last night I was not as I should be.

It didn't start last night. It's been going on for awhile.

Sometimes, I expect things. As if I deserve them. Entitlement. I don't want to play that card--the "Deserve" card--the one that says: What we really deserve is death but Christ came to save our wretched souls. While true, this is a different lesson in grace and suffering.

* * *

This is about two women, Hagar and Sarah, whose lives were entwined. Sarah was supposed to have believed God for his promise of a son. But. She didn't. She didn't think God could deliver or maybe didn't think he was delivering fast enough. So she told her husband (who also had a say in the matter, possibly the final say) to get Hagar, her servant, pregnant. And he did.

Then Sarah got mad at Hagar.

Uhm. Hello?

Hagar ran away from Sarah's bad attitude and mistreatment. She stopped for awhile. To think maybe?

She was sitting by a spring of water in the wilderness.

* * *

I ran away. I was walking in the wilderness near a small river. Alone.


Quit laughing at me.

Ok. Laugh. It is funny.

* * *

An Angel of the YHWH (Yahweh, the name God gives himself) found her by a spring of water in the wilderness and said to her, "You must go back to your mistress and submit to her mistreatment."

The Angel of the YHWH also said to her, "I will greatly multiply your offspring, and they will be too many to count."

* * *

I had to clean off in a mud puddle before I could get back in the car. I washed my feet, my hands, my arm, and my leg in muddy water. I couldn't get the mud off my pants though.

* * *

So she named the LORD who spoke to her: El Roi--The God Who Sees, for she said, "Have I really seen here the One who sees me?"

* * *

I had a dream last night, a long, weird dream. But at the end I was in my car. Leaving. I started to back out and noticed my stack of weirdly huge Bibles in the field across the road and it was raining. I sat for a long time and watched the rain pour over my Bibles. They were fat and bloated and soaking up the rain and getting ruined. I was driving away from the Bibles so I could turn around and be on the same side of the road as they were, so I could get them in from the rain.

I got out of my car and got soaked walking towards them...