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Hagar

             She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” (Genesis 16:13) 

            “The God who sees me” is El Roi in Hebrew. It is found in the story of Hagar, a historic “Handmaid” of the sort from Handmaid’s Tale. She’s a surrogate mother who makes a bad situation worse by getting a big head because she got pregnant, and Sarai didn’t. For her part, Sarai was the sort of person in this story that we’re told we shouldn’t be – the wicked stepmother, the evil queen. Hagar ran away, which means she went from bad to worse. Her situation with Sarai wasn’t good, but now she had no one to protect her, no one to provide for her, no place to live, no food to eat. Then she met God.

            The place of the meeting was a spring along the road to Shur. As I read this passage, my thoughts turned to another encounter at a spring between God and a woman - spring had been developed into a well. And the woman who came to it may have been trying to escape, too. She went in the heat of the day to escape the women who would judge her and gossip about her. She may have also gone there to escape from the man who was not her husband.

            And Jesus didn’t rescue her from the townsfolk or her non-husband. He told her to go get her husband. Curiously, in the description of what she did as a result, no mention is made of the man who was not her husband. When she returned to town, she told them He had told her everything she’d ever done. We don’t see that in the passage, but in doing that, He revealed Himself as El Roi to her.

            In both cases, the woman who was seen by the God who sees me was seen and sent back in the strength and knowledge of having been seen – with the task of ministering to the very people who made her want to flee.

            Working at a garden center, I see a lot of people who are trying to build springs and wells – places to which they can escape from inconsiderate, domineering masters, from coworkers and townsfolk who live nearby (neighbors) who judge, criticize, and gossip, from the stresses of the world, and threats of lack. When we’re in trouble, we welcome God seeing us, because we hope to be rescued. But God doesn’t provide her with a hunk-in-shining-armor, or a palace along the Nile. He sends her back to reconcile with Sarai. But I suspect it was on the strength of His being the God who sees her that she could do so.

            This is something I’ve pondered off and on since my father died. What do I want my home to be? And this is it. It’s a spring in a desert, to which I can flee from the world, from the folks who judge and criticize…encounter the God who sees me, and then return to minister to those who have made me want to flee. But as much work as I might to do to make it a spring in the desert, if it is not a place where God sees me, it’s a mudpuddle. After slipping around on clay in the last couple of days in an attempt to build a garden bed, that isn’t very appealing.

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