Everyone who walks with God has a story to tell. The stories may be different but one thing remains true – the experience you get along the journey leaves you with something to tell. Growing up, I thought my story would start on a high note and end like a fairy tale. It is what the preachers said on Sunday or at least the only parts I picked out. ‘Everything will be okay,’ they reiterated to our young and eager souls, a perfect way to keep us on our toes – waiting for tomorrow to come; excited about the beauty it concealed. Then life happened and storms of life hit so hard that they left me wondering if something was wrong with me or with my Faith. My story hit a pause button and I needed more than anything else to find out how other people were fairing – and for those who had made it, how they had avoided these storms and lived to tell their beautiful stories.

Therefore, I picked up my bible and began to go through the pages. And I realised it was full of people going through different stages of life, but they all had one common attribute: This grit like – bordering stubborn – Faith in God. Men like Job who were bold enough to tell God, ‘Kill me if you want, but I am not going anywhere [paraphrase]’. At the end of their lives, each learnt something about God and testified on the same thing: His never-ending Faithfulness to His word and His people. There is a plethora of men and women to write about but today I picked out three of them – all women (we will definitely look at the men another time!). Meet Hagar, Hannah, and the woman with the bleeding disease.

Hagar. We meet her in Genesis and in her story; she starts out as a slave to Abraham and Sarah. When Sarah and Abraham failed to have a child, they resorted to bringing her on board so she could bear a child for them. When she became pregnant, she started to forget her status and overlook her mistress. Sarah would not take it and started to treat her harshly. Unable to endure the harsh treatment, Hagar ran away. She ran into the desert alone and pregnant, unsure of the way to her home. After a long walk and with a lot of despair she rested near a well where an Angel found her. He asked her to go back and submit to Sarah, her mistress and he gave her the assurance that all would be well for her and the son that she would bear, even going as far as telling her that her son would have a great inheritance. What stands out for me is her response; ‘I have now seen the one who sees me (Genesis 16:13)‘; and she gave God a name ‘You are the God who sees‘. Hagar learnt on that day, after years of feeling unseen and unvalued, that God also saw her. There was a God who did not just see her master and mistress, but a God who saw slaves as well! So if Hagar could write her story, it would go: There is a God who sees me even when men do not see me.

Hannah. We meet Hannah in the book of Samuel. She starts out as a barren woman mocked by her co-wife for something that was not even her fault. Her predicament was the same year in and year out, and Hannah was always in tears. One day when she went with her husband to Shiloh to worship, she prayed so fervently that the priest Eli thought she was drunk. However, this time something different happened. Heaven answered! She bore a son, Samuel, who went on to become the voice of God in Israel for as long as he lived. When Hannah came to give thanks, she prayed, ‘He lifts the poor from the dust and lifts the beggar from the ash heap and sets them among princes and makes them inherit the throne of Glory (1 Samuel 2:8)‘. Hannah saw God take a despised barren woman and crown her with His Goodness. So if Hannah could write her story, it would go: There is a God who lifts us up, takes away the shame and pain, and fills us with laughter.

The woman with the bleeding disease. Her story is found in the gospel of Matthew, Mark and Luke. None of them is kind enough to tell us her name. All they say is that she had a bleeding disease for 12 years. One day she got the news that Jesus was coming to town and she joined the crowd coming to see him. Her Faith propelled her to touch Jesus’ cloak and when she did, she was healed immediately. Jesus then turned around and asked, ‘Who touched me?’. After a short search, she came forward and he told her; ‘Daughter, your Faith has made you well. Go in peace (Luke 8:48)‘. For many years, this woman’s identity and her story were tied to her disease, unable to even go to the temple. She was only one thing: the sick bleeding woman. However, that day Jesus called her something else: Daughter. Her Faith not only healed her but also led her to understand that her identity was not that of the sick bleeding woman, but she was a child of the most high God. So if this unnamed woman could write her story, it would go: There is a God who calls me His own.

Hagar’s story starts as a slave, Hannah as a barren woman and the woman with a bleeding disease without an identity. And yet they are the ones we read about today; who give us hope that our stories can change and they can end well. Studying these people’s stories helped me understand how I will tell my own story. That at every stage of life, God stayed Faithful and that the areas that caused me the most pain and shame – stories I wish were never known or told – that is where God started from. He started to mold and like the perfect molder He is, I trust He will make something beautiful out of my life. I will write that: when I was weak, I was made strong; when I was poor, I was made rich – for that is what the Lord has done for me. Therefore, when I tell my story, it will not be from a weak, shameful, and defeated perspective; but it will be full of the times when God came through.

The story I will tell will be of a God who stayed Faithful – even to me.

Today I was studying the book of Ruth and something caught my eye which I had never noticed before. When Ruth got married to Boaz, she conceived and gave birth [almost] immediately (Ruth 4:13). That made me wonder, “Wasn’t Ruth married to Naomi’s son, Mahlon, long enough to have children?” Indeed, when I turned back to Ruth 1, I discovered that the two were married for at least 10 years by the time of Mahlon’s death (Ruth 1: 4-5). The big question then is, “Why?”

Was it for the lack of trying that Ruth did not give birth all those 10 years? Or was it for the lack of interest in having children. My answer to both questions is “No”.

First of all, I say no because Ruth lived between the 4th and 6th Century BC (rough estimate from a quick Google search). During this time, the role of a woman was generally to tend the home and to bear children. Furthermore, “Reproduce and fill the earth” was still a very serious commitment at that time (since the earth was not full at all anyway). Therefore, we cannot say that Ruth and Mahlon were not trying. We also cannot say that they were not interested. Ruth in particular had become really close to this family and from the story, we can see that she desired nothing but to please her mother-in-law, Naomi. Ruth must have been truly interested in having children in order to carry on the family name and so was Naomi and Mahlon.

If Ruth and Mahlon were interested and were trying; and we know from the story that Ruth was not barren [I have thought for a second that Mahlon was the one who could not have children, but I will disregard that thought because there is no precedent in the Bible, that I know of, to indicate that the problem was with the man]. If all of the above was the case, why then didn’t Ruth have children for all the 10 years she was with Mahlon?

Could it be that the delay in childbirth was allowed by God? Could it be that God saw the bigger picture, where one day Ruth would have to go to Bethlehem as a widow and would need a kinsman redeemer?

Let me take a step back and explain myself. When Boaz was having that meeting with his relative and the clan elders in Ruth 4:1-12, he made this statement twice, “[Buy Ruth along with Elimelech’s other possessions]…. in order to perpetuate the name of the dead in his inheritance”. This means that the major reason (probably only reason) that Ruth was even a part of this [kinsman redemption] transaction is because she had no children with Mahlon and thus it was justified for Boaz to marry her as part of the redemption – so as to preserve Mahlon’s and Elimelech’s lineage.

This is quite profound. If we step back 10 years from the time Ruth gave birth to her first child, we would meet a woman who did not know anything about the bigger picture. A woman who in that moment only thought about the fact that she could not have children and wondered desperately why this was so. She probably prayed earnestly to God; starting every year believing and hoping that it was the year she would conceive and ending the year crushed with disappointment.

Leaving the past and fast forwarding 10 years later, I can imagine Ruth seated at the makeup table on a her wedding day, looking back at the 10 years of disappointment and this time not with despair but with a knowing smile. Understanding finally that God’s delay was indeed not a delay. It was preservation.

I see her holding the beautifully embroidered fabric of her wedding dress; her mind flooded with the light of understanding. The Master had been interweaving a beautiful story behind the painful piercing of failure and disappointment.

On that day, and most profoundly on the day she gave birth to Obed, Ruth understood the God of the Bigger Picture.

2 Peter 3:9 The LORD is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.