I appreciate that the Bible doesn't avoid hard topics. It's all in there. Yesterday we read about Hagar, the single mom. I had never really considered her as a single mom. She had Abraham, didn't she? No, not really. Sarah had Abraham. She was more like leftovers. And Sarah knew it.
Sarah had just become a "believer" when Isaac was born. A believer in the Miracle-worker who could bring her a baby in her old age, but she wasn't fully sanctified yet and still could be quite nasty. She'd already treated Hagar very badly when Sarah found out Hagar was pregnant. Hagar ran away into the wilderness. Already pregnant, and a single mom-to-be, she was alone. But God found her there and encouraged her with a promise of a son, "I will surely multiply your offspring so that they cannot be numbered for multitude." Then, he also told her, "...because the Lord has listened to your affliction...." So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, "You are a God of seeing...Truly here I have seen Him who looks after me." (Gen. 16:11. 13)
Isn't that what a single mom needs to hear? That she is heard? That her affliction is not unnoticed? He is a God of seeing and He looks after her.
But, poor Hagar. Her troubles didn't stop there. Again, she gets booted out. Back into the wilderness, for the second time. I'm sure all single moms must feel like that is where they live most of the time. Later, after both Isaac and Ishmael are both older, Sarah, again, gets ticked off at Hagar. Ishmael was caught "laughing". Perhaps at Isaac? It isn't clear, but it sure made Sarah mad and she was determined to get rid of both of them. Unbelievably, God allows Hagar to be sent out into the wilderness...yet again.
This time, God doesn't reveal Himself to her until her skin of water is gone and she's put her son under a bush to die. "Then she went and sat down opposite him a good way off, about the distance of a bowshot, for she said, 'Let me not look on the death of the child.' And as she sat opposite him, she lifted up her voice and wept." (Ge. 21:16) How many times have I received a text from my single mom friend telling me how often she cries? Not only is God a God who sees, but He is also a God who hears. "And God heard the voice of the boy, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, 'What troubles you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is. Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand, for I will make him into a great nation.' Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water and gave the boy a drink." (Gen.21: 17, 18)
These verses encourage me that he not only hears the cries of the single mom, but also the cries of her children. As I watch my friend go through this struggle, I'm also seeing her kids' struggles, her kids' cries. I'm pretty helpless. I sometimes feel like I'm watching them under a bush with no water. I hear my friend's cries for her own children and I feel like a helpless observer...but then....there are stories where I hear God has heard her, heard her cries for her kids. This past weekend I asked her, "So, have you heard about the hydro bill yet?" She's been staying in a cabin all winter "for free". The owner of the cabin, who has never even met her, said the only condition was that she pay the hydro bill. All winter long, she's been keeping the heat at a low, low level. Not using the dryer, hanging all the clothes up in the basement to dry. Making all sorts of dramatic changes in their lifestyle so that she wouldn't be stuck with a huge hydro bill. But no bill would come. We were wondering if the owner was going to just surprise her with a big amount due at the end of the winter. Finally, she heard from the owner. She was so impressed with how low the bill was she didn't charge her for November...or...December...or January. If she keeps it up, she won't be charging her for the entire season. Thank God it hasn't been a brutally cold winter. That means she's been given these living arrangements for free the entire fall and winter, right into spring. Is that a God who sees and hears or what?
I asked her girls what the hardest thing was living so far away in this cabin. They are bored and hate being so far away from their friends. But then I read about Ishmael. "And God was with the boy, and he grew up. He lived in the wilderness and became an expert in the bow. He lived in the wilderness of Paran...." (Gen. 21:20) God was with Ishamel...in the wilderness. He ended up acquiring certain skills that made him an "expert" later in life, in the exact areas he would need that expertise. My friend's kids are in a wilderness of their own. What skills are they acquiring? Is God preparing them for what they will need later in their life?
I'm sure that Hagar would have rather been closer to civilization, for herself and for her child. But somehow she still found a wife for Ishmael. He became a father of many. There is no talk of Hagar finding herself a husband. She only had God to rely on. That's all my friend has, too. "Just " God, which surely is enough.
The wilderness is literally where my friend's family is living...sort of in the middle of nowhere. God seems to specialize in wilderness training. The Bible speaks of the wilderness all the time, especially with the Israelites wandering in it for 40 years! I don't love wilderness training. I prefer cushy life, for me and for my kids, for my friend and for her kids. But God sometimes takes us to "Wilderness School" like he did with Hagar and Ishmael and whether we like it or not, that's where we find ourselves, learning, being trained to become experts in whatever we are supposed to learn. The skills we are acquiring are for the future, for something we don't even know is coming. God is the God who sees and hears. He knows what He is doing.
Being a single mom wasn't easy in the Bible and it isn't easy now. Being a single mom in the wilderness is even harder. Being a single mom, with one child, in the wilderness, is one thing, but seven children in the wilderness? Brutal. The Bible doesn't gloss over the fact life doesn't always go as we hope. But, what it does show, is that even when it doesn't and we find ourselves as a single mom, out in the wilderness with our crying kids, that He meets us there...sometimes in the form of an angel, sometimes God Himself, sometimes a landlord who pays our bills, sometimes a spring of water. He hears us and tells us not to be afraid. Genesis 21:18 does not give us a formula for single parenting. God is very straightforward, however, and doesn't let us stay sad and pitiful. Instead He says, "Up! Lift up the boy, and hold him fast with your hand." We are supposed to pick ourselves up, pick up our kids, hold their little hands fast and trust Him for their future. That's where we start.
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