Exploited in the church, but Leah no more
As unloved Leah did Jacob, a woman can give herself to a church culture that exploits her – while rejecting her personhood, her adulthood, her worth, her.
As unloved Leah did Jacob, a woman can give herself to a church culture that exploits her – while rejecting her personhood, her adulthood, her worth, her.
If you've been betrayed by a spouse: The Lord has been there. He hates treachery. He calls out the treacherous. And he defends the betrayed.
What hides the presence of women alongside men in the new Testament, and especially in Paul's letters? Where have all the women gone?
Even in suffering, even in exile, may you find growing within you: A life energetic and blazing with holiness, conceived by God himself. Life healed and whole. Laughter and singing. Genuine faith proved genuine. Living hope. One-anothering love. A future that starts now.
It's the best-loved verse in Jeremiah, and God says it to exiles. He announces to people who feel they have no future at all: "I know what I have planned for you. I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope."
The work of exile – the work God wants to do through it – is to free you from bondage that masquerades as relationship, to draw you to himself, to show you what is and is not love. Perhaps the hardest thing you can do in exile – and by far the most freeing – is to stay there until it has done its work.