By Christina V –
You are precious to Me and I love you. – Isaiah 43:4
Rejection lead to depression
I longed to be loved, to be accepted, and always sought for the approval of those whom I wanted to love me. This led to many disappointments in my life, to the extent that I started to hate myself. In the process of making others to love and accept me, I never realized I had started to hate and had completely rejected myself! I was in a deep depression and had no ray of hope!
Often when we long to be validated by human beings, we fall into darkness of despair. We need to understand that no human is able to show that perfect love we long for. It’s like the phrase “the blind following the blind; both fall into the ditch” Matthew 15:14. You follow a mortal being in expectation of the perfect love; you’d never know when you’d fall in darkness….. In depression.
This was a time when I turned back to God, for an immediate solace. That’s what we do right! We choose God the last!!! While I was yearning for solace, I was driven towards a life of someone in the bible who made me wonder, what it was like to be loved! A love story that can baffle you!
My Christian friend fell in love and got married and often spoke about her love story in comparison with the love Jacob and Rachael shared. How Jacob worked hard for fourteen years to be married to the woman he loved. Great love story indeed. But wait a minute…. Was this the best love story in the bible?
Amazing love story that is quite not amazing
When we read the story of Jacob and Rachael, the bible says that Rachael was beautiful of form and appearance. Now Jacob loved Rachael. Genesis 29: 17,18. The bible illustrates that Jacob and Rachael fell in love at first sight. Appearance does matter in the eyes of a man, a human being. Thus he waited fourteen years to marry her. However during this course of time, an event took place in the life of Jacob which had indeed disappointed him. He was deceived to be married Leah, Rachael’s elder sister. Leah’s eyes were delicate. Genesis 29: 17; which is obvious that Leah was not as beautiful as Rachael.
Being unloved is unpleasant
Leah had been married off to Jacob by deception, only to be unloved all through her life. We can imagine the pain Leah would have been through. The man whom she was married to, loved another woman; a woman whose external appearance was much more pleasing unlike hers. We can imagine the pathetic life of Leah.
Her husband married another woman, waited for her to be given as a wife; we can speculate that Jacob would have laid his eyes completely on Rachael for the rest of the seven years. Rejection and loneliness brings excruciating pain. Leah felt this pain every moment of her life!
Turning to God for comfort
However Leah turned to God! Though after being reviled by Jacob, she may have turned to God, it is so true that we too turn to God when turned down by human beings. No matter what, when she turned to God, we know that her relationship with God would have been strong. This is witnessed by the blessings she received. God reciprocated to this unloved and uncared woman with His everlasting love.
True Love
The Bible states that when the Lord saw that Leah was unloved, He opened her womb. Genesis 29: 31. God blessed her with children who would be the most important tribes of Israel. God’s love for Leah is displayed in her becoming mother to the priestly and kingly tribes, Levi and Judah. Through her womb was born Judah, through whose lineage we have King David and through whom is born the Savior.
However Leah’s hope for her husband’s love never ceased. After her first son Rueben, she still hoped that her husband would love her, as the Bible states that she had prayed “the Lord surely looked on my affliction, my therefore my husband will love me” Genesis 29: 32; but by the time she bore her fourth son Judah, she only praised God and had stopped hoping on being loved by her husband, “Now I will praise the Lord.” Genesis 29:35. We can understand that she may have lost the hope by this time.
But God never left Leah’s side. We can be sure that he compensated the earthly love she lacked by giving her more children, a lineage which would bring forth Christ.
All through her life Leah had not stopped praying to God, though we can be sure that she was never loved and honored. She was a reject. But in this rejection she found her love, her true love. I wonder if Leah ever realized this!! I can imagine that as days went by, she did accept the truth that her husband never loved her and remained so until her death.
God’s unending love
But there was this God who loved her so much so that he chose to come down to earth through her lineage. She was the one after her death was buried alongside her husband. God honored her and considered her as precious, in the way which she could never imagine. Our lives weighed down by the rejection and loneliness; do not realize this perfect love.
When I read the story of Leah, I could sense this perfect love of God so much so that the depression disappeared and joy filled my heart. I don’t see that the situation in my life has changed. I have the same worries, but I know I’m loved and I’m precious in the eyes of that One whose love is constant and unchanging! He’s with me and you. We do not require a human being to validate us; we have Him to love us at all times!! And His unfailing love can bring unimaginable blessing.
Christina Vasanthaiah is a freelance writer with a Bachelor’s Degree in Arts in addition to holding a Counseling Psychology PG Diploma.