The flight
The sun burned her skin as she stumbled through the desert, her bare feet kicking up dust. Her lips were cracked. Her hands trembled. She hadn’t had water in days. Her swollen belly burned with each step, the baby twisting and turning inside her, as if he too sensed the danger.
She was alone in the world. As far as she could see, no other human existed, no smokes from shimmering pots nearby as the night approached. She had no protection. No shelter. No one to care if she survived. Hagar crouched near a spring, more like a trickle than a stream but enough to keep her upright. The ache in her back pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat. She wrapped her arms around her belly and closed her eyes.
What was she doing out here? How had it come to this? She wasn’t from here. She wasn’t even meant to be part of this story.
She was a servant. An Egyptian girl taken from her homeland and handed over like a vessel. She had worked for her mistress since she was a child until her mistress had come up with a “genius” idea
Sarai had come to her, eyes shinning with hope and desperation, and said the words that changed her life: “Sleep with my husband. Maybe God means to give me a child through you.”
Hagar had no voice in the matter. No one asked if she was willing. She wasn’t a wife. She was a vessel. And when the plan “worked,” when her body did what Sarai’s never could, something shifted inside her.
Sarai’s eyes turned cold. Her words grew sharper by the day. The glances, the whispers, the punishments. Each one chipped away at the fragile confidence Hagar had begun to feel. She’d tried to stay strong for the child growing inside her. But the cruelty became too much. So, she ran. Her feet swift like a deer. She didn’t even think it through. She just knew she had to get away.
And now here she was, in the middle of nowhere, weary, pregnant, hungry, homeless and afraid. She held her belly and whispered, “I tried. I really tried.”
The Encounter
Then a voice broke through the silence.
“Hagar.”
Her name? She spun and looked up at a man towering above her, casting a shadow and shielding her from the sun. Where had he come from? And he didn’t call her “slave.” Not “girl.” Not “Sarai’s servant.”
He called her Hagar.
She looked up and saw a man standing beside the spring. His eyes were kind. They held knowledge too deep, compassion too raw.
“Where have you come from, and where are you going?” he asked. She lowered her eyes. “I’m running from my mistress Sarai.” He nodded, as if He already knew.
Then He said, “Go back to her. Submit.” Her throat tightened. Return to the pain? The humiliation? But before she could protest, He spoke again. This time, His words wrapped around her like a promise.
“You are pregnant, and you will give birth to a son. You shall call his name Ishmael, for the Lord has heard of your misery. I will multiply your seed exceedingly that it shall not be numbered” He heard. He saw.
He had made her a promise! Greatness would come from a slave girl.
She whispered through her tears, falling to her knees before him, “You are the God who sees me.” And in that moment, under the heat of the desert sun, she wasn’t a slave or a victim. She was a woman known by God. A woman with God’s promise.,
Not forgotten. Not discarded. Seen.
Sometimes, the Lord reaches out to us when we are at our weakest point. He promised to be with us in when we pass through the fire and when we go through the waters (Isaiah 43:2). We are not promised a life free of trials, but we can rest assured that God will guide us through it.
Indeed, he is the God who sees each of us! Thanks for this. I was blessed indeed!