Tamar's Story

We don't often think about the women who were in Jesus' family line. So, I decided to write about them during this season of Lent. Some of their stories aren't easy to understand because the culture and laws of their day were so different than ours. However, their stories can still help us understand the depth of the Lord's compassion towards women and the graces He extended to those who are broken and bruised by life's events and circumstances. This week we are looking at Tamar whose story is found in Genesis 38.

Her story begins with Judah who had taken a Canaanite woman's daughter as his wife. She bore him three sons--Er, Onan, and Shelah. As was customary, Judah arranged for Tamar to be the wife of Er. But, Er was wicked and the Lord put him to death. It was also customary for the patriarch to send a second son to raise up children for his dead brother. Onan, knowing the children Tamar would conceive by their union would not be his legal children, spilled his seed on the ground, leaving her barren and her husbands lineage unfulfilled. So, the Lord put him to death as well. Judah was afraid that giving Tamar his third son could result in his death as well. So, he sent her to live in her father's house as a widow, telling her he would send for her when Shelah grew up.

Tamar lived as a widow, hoping Shelah would come for her. However, as time passed and Shelah had grown, Tamar realized her father-in-law had no intention of fulfilling his word. Her grief over becoming a young widow was compounded by the hopelessness caused Judah's actions. She knew the withholding of his last son from her meant her longing for companionship, love, and children would never be fulfilled. She felt forgotten, overlooked, rejected, and betrayed by a man who held her future in his hands.

More time passed and Judah's wife died. Tamar heard that after his period of grieving that Judah was going to Timnah to shear sheep. Having grown tired of life as a widow, she took matters into her own hands. She removed her widow's garb and put on the garments of a cult prostitute, which included a veil. She waited at the entrance of a city on the road to Timnah. Judah approached her and did not recognize her because of the veil. He propositioned her with a goat for her "services" and agreed to leave her his signet, cord, and staff to hold onto as a good faith promise for the goat. She conceived a child by him and returned to her father's house to her widow garments.

Judah sent the goat to Tamar through a friend, but she was nowhere to be found. He was unable to pay her the goat and unable to obtain his things from her. He dropped the matter as he didn't want anyone to think he was foolish for what he had done. But, three months later Judah received news that his daughter-in-law was pregnant. Assuming she had been immoral, Judah ordered his men to bring her to him so she could be burned for her sin.

Tamar came prepared to plead her case. She handed his things to him and told him the man to whom the things belonged was the man who had fathered her babies. Judah recognized his things and announced she was more righteous than him because he had failed to give Shelah to her. I find myself a little irritated that he acknowledged his failure to keep the custom of giving his third son to her, but didn't outright own the moral failure of hiring a prostitute.

When I was younger, I judged her quite harshly, thinking I would never do what she did, no matter the circumstances. But, if we were really honest and took a good look at our own lives I don't think any of us could stand. What did we do when we experienced the pain of unmet needs and unfulfilled longings? What did we do when we felt forgotten, overlooked, rejected, and betrayed? Maybe we didn't try to meet our needs with an act of prostitution or use the same type of deception Tamar did. But, I bet many of us have employed manipulation at some point to get what we wanted. Many of us have tried to fill longings with things that were never meant to satisfy. And, many of us have just simply numbed our longings and our desires and began to live life depressed and/or bitter. But isn't dealing with life these ways that are apart from our Creator, our Savior, our Provider forms of spiritual adultery? Isn't that just as wrong as what she did?

I wish I could ask the Lord a thousand questions about Tamar's story. But, I know that what He wants us to learn from Tamar's story could be lost in too many details. Maybe God placed Tamar in Jesus lineage to show us He is the Redeemer of those who have felt like outsiders looking in. Maybe God put Tamar in Christ's family line so we would know He is the healer of those who feel forgotten and rejected. Maybe God placed her there to show us He is the lover of the unloved, the rescuer of the betrayed, the acknowledger of those who were set aside, and the host to those who felt uninvited. Maybe He put her there to remind us that Jesus is even Savior to those who take matters into their own hands, using deception and sin to try to find what only He could give. Maybe, God put Tamar in Christ's family line so we would know there is more to the story we are living than we see right now.

Just as God placed Tamar into Jesus' story and into His family, by faith we have been placed into His story and into His family. Tamar reminds us of that that. You and I--we are loved, we are called by His name, we have been placed into His family, and our futile lives and be given significance. Jesus's family is a family full of broken, forgotten, loved-starved people just like Tamar, just like you, and just like me. It is a family full of people who are lavishly loved and in desperate need of God's grace.

When Did I Sign up for This? -- Lent #2

"I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace.

In the world you will have tribulation.

But take heart; I have overcome the world." 

John 16:33

 

I am a mother of five children. The first four were twenty months apart and the last one came three years later. I loved being a mom and loved hearing their voices asking important questions like, "Have you ever seen a muscle as big as this one?" I loved the feel of their small hands on my arm as they patted to get my attention. I loved the kitchen as they washed dishes that would need to be washed again. I loved the strawberry stains on their little faces as they denied picking them from our strawberry patch. I loved most of all hearing them discuss what they learned at church. One Easter the oldest informed us that God was the most powerful being in the world. The second one, challenged him because he thought the wrestler, "Junk Yard Dog," was the strongest man. Promptly the oldest said that God was powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead and there could be nothing more powerful than that. 

 

But to be honest there were times I found being a mom hard. During my third pregnancy I awoke to a strange man in our bedroom. I was terrified and as a result became sleep deprived and then struggled a lot with post-partum depression. I felt so ashamed because we had three beautiful children at the time and had just bought our first home. I had everything I wanted, but I didn't feel good. The sound of the kids little arguments were like bullets through my heart, which traveled over every nerve in my body. I remember thinking, "When did I sign up for this?" Sadly, I mishandled the arguments and parenting a lot during that time. 

 

I eventually called my pastor and several women befriended me and that helped some. I also got through that season studying the Word, phone counseling with the pastor, and listening to tapes by Jill Briscoe and other great teachers like her. That season exposed lies that I believed without even knowing it. I thought by becoming a believer, my life would be easier and  more carefree, and that I would always feel happy. The key verse above makes it clear that even believers will have tribulation in this life, but somehow I didn't remember hearing it early on or reading it until after this season of pain.

 

There have since been several hard seasons and there have been a few phrases I have come to despise. One is, "God will never give you any more than you can handle!" "You need to work on forgiveness." and "Its a sin to worry!" First, of all none of those phrases occur in the Bible. These comments are often made by thoughtless people who don't want to experience pain or walk with someone as they wrestle with hard subjects like God's sovereignty and suffering. 

 

But what if that is exactly what God calls us to do. I watched my best friend bury her six month old after having already lost one baby to a miscarriage. We were a part of a very close church and we all wept with her. She had lost her parents and the pastor and every other church member had adopted her as family. I remember looking down at the organist's skirt and it was drenched with the tears that had fallen as she played. My friend soon got pregnant with twins and one of the twins didn't make it and I was so  overwhelmed for her and wondered if God knew how much she was suffering. We wept together for a few weeks before I returned home.

 

She told me about sixteen years later how precious her two living children were to her and how much she enjoyed them. Within a week, my friend died and I went back for her funeral. Even though we had been separated by miles, we had kept in touch and everyone understood that we were close. Many people came up to me and hugged me. At the funeral, my friend Joyce came and sat by me and put her arms around me as I looked at my friend in her casket. She didn't offer empty platitudes, but she wept with me as the praise team of which my friend had been apart began to sing songs of worship. Others spent hours reminiscing about her with me. Their willingness to feel their own grief and walk me through mine was a healing balm to my aching heart.

 

My friend, Joyce, lost a grandson about a year ago. They had a memorial service last night. It sounded beautiful and her daughter-in-law, Daphne, wrote about her experience of grief in getting through this last year on Facebook. It has been a hard year and they aren't done grieving yet. But, through it all they have repeatedly shared how God has sustained them through this time and how people have encouraged them. Joyce told me, that another friend in the church had lost her mom and their family who is a part of the praise team got up and lead worship as usual. Joyce has a very tender heart, so I know there were tears shed as they sang. Joyce has always seemed to understand that love is sacrificial and that when one loves well, there will be tears involved. She and her husband have loved well many young families who came through that church and wept with them through losses and goodbyes.         

 

Out of my own healing journey, with God's help I have developed a ministry that I oversee that serves women who have suffered various traumas in their lives. We recently put together a leadership retreat for our leaders. There were fourteen women there who serve in this ministry. We took them through an exercise in which they spent time drawing the trauma's they had experienced in this life and then it took about twelve hours for them to share all that they had drawn on their boards. I cannot tell you how often I thought to myself things like, "No, little girl should ever have to have experienced what she experienced!" "No teenager should have had to experience that trauma!" or "No child should have had to experience that kind of loss!" Some of them shared some of the things that they had experienced as adults. I found myself wondering if they had known what they were in for would they have signed up for the retreat? Even more importantly, would they have become Christians had they know what they were to face? 

 

The next morning one of the leaders lead worship and another served communion and I have to admit that hearing those women sing was one so overwhelming that all I could do was weep at the beauty of it. These women who have experienced real heartache in their lives are women who have been courageous enough to face it and wrestle with it until they could fully trust God and His love and fully accept the stories that He has penned for their lives. These women, like my friend Joyce,  have loved in ways that only God could have equipped them to love. They have forgiven unforgiveable things that only God could have helped them forgive. They have chosen to revisit their own pain year after year as they hear stories similar to their own and walk women through the healing journey in the groups they lead. As we worshipped it hit me that they signed up for this when they became followers of the Traumatized Savior. The suffering they experienced over their life time has given them an understanding of God that is so rich and so deep that it has helped them to be able to hold on when life hurts in the here and now. It has helped them believe when life seems impossible to bear. They have learned to trust God even though their ability to trust was marred by their experiences.

 

Because of my experiences in my church in Mississippi and because of my relationships with these precious ladies, I know God cares when His people hurt because He has enabled these ladies to serve and worship against a backdrop of pain. I believe the suffering in this world is caused by the fall and remains so that we come to the end of ourselves and learn to trust in Him, not just once but day after day after day. He allows suffering so we can understand the depths of His love poured out on us at the Saviors death. I believe He allows suffering for now so that we will develop hearts of compassion, beating with His love that is showering His grace so that we could share how He comforts, He loves, He strengthens, and He sanctifies us through the "This's" of this life.