Excerpts from Becky Lovatt’s Book “Beyond the Chocolate Window”

The Voice of Sarah

Waiting?

I'll tell you all about waiting! I waited for years; waited for my husband Abraham to share his life with me; waited for God to fulfil his promise; and now, after all this waiting, this happens.

I followed my husband, who followed his God. I left my home, my family and the people I loved. I followed because I believed that I would share in the promise. Eventually, after years of waiting... it was mine.

As Abraham‘s wife, I had been unable to fulfil what it means to be a woman in my culture and time — to bear a child. Yes, I was barren and broken emotionally, physically and spiritually, seemingly abandoned by all I had come to trust in. But then the waiting ended.

God came up trumps. Our son, Isaac, was born and he was everything. He was my whole world. He was the realisation of all that had been, all that was, and all that is still to come. This part of God’s promise to my husband had been completed and fulfilled.

So, you can imagine the sheer fear in my heart when I woke one morning to find my bed and Isaac's bed empty. I waited for the two of them to return — the father and the son — to embrace them, to still my racing mind and quell my increasing sense of dread.

Eventually, days later, they did arrive. As Abraham told me his tale, my fear turned to rage. God had been Calling again — not to move or change this time, but to kill; to kill the promise, to kill the one thing we had waited so long for, to sacrifice our only son.

How dare he, this God of grace and mercy who had given us so much? How dare he take it away now? Was this a way to punish me for laughing, for doubting his ability to give us a child in the first place? If it was, then he was a cruel and uncaring God and I wanted to walk away immediately.

Then there was my husband, blindly following the leading of a God he couldn't see. I know he had done it before, but this was different. This was our son. Didn‘t he think to question? Or at least to discuss it with me? No — God came first, as usual.

My anger was abated as I heard my child‘s cry. He was still breathing, still needing me. Moreover, his heart was still pumping blood around his body. 

God had provided a new sacrifice — not my son, but a ram conveniently caught in a bush, a replacement offering — but what did It all mean?

Prayer

God of all things, of waiting, of promise, of anger and of release,

come close to me now and hold me,

here in the situation of life I find myself.

I pray for all those I know who have lost children:

come alongside them and hold them as they journey on.

I bring before you those I know who feel anger

about what they are experiencing or have experienced;

bring release and hope in their lives.