Their Eyes Met Across a Crowded Room...
May
10
Written by:
5/10/2010 1:28 PM
I can’t take total credit for this entry. I was reading an email from someone and it really “spoke” to me and I had to blog about it for a while:
"Leah's eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful of form and face." Genesis 29:17
Have you ever felt like a booby prize? No doubt Leah did. Hunky Jacob labored seven years to marry Leah's gorgeous sister, Rachel. Then their squirrelly father switched his daughters at the altar. Jacob freaked. Leah tanked. We, too, sometimes feel that we're not good enough - that we don't measure up. But Leah gave birth to six of the twelve tribes of Israel, the cornerstone of Judeo-Christendom. God has a mighty plan for all of us Leahs.
Ok, now it’s my turn to talk. I admit…I can totally relate to Leah. I’ve spent a good deal of my life looking at other people and wondering why I just couldn’t measure up to what they were. I’ve been spending a lot of time in thought lately. I invite you to come back to high school with me, where I am smitten by a young man during my sophomore year. (Love is a very powerful thing when you’re 15 and have zero self-confidence.) I try to catch glimpses across a crowded band room, and then shrink in horror as I am caught looking by the object of my affection. Oh, the humiliation! I lower myself just below the edge of the music stand while I wait for my cheeks to return to a normal color.
(Insert Yoda voice here.) The Leah syndrome--strong it is. You see, there was this other girl…she was a cute, little thing, with a happy personality. I think she was even a cheerleader. (Figures, huh?) Clearly, I was no match for her. Prince Charming would certainly choose her over me—or so I thought. Contrary to what I believed, things did work out for us for a while. I won’t overwhelm this blog with details. Suffice to say, I did end up with some really sweet memories with him that I still carry today. I’m sure Jacob and Leah had their good times, too. But for whatever reason, I have fought that self-doubt through my whole life. (See blog entry April 24 "Welcome Back.")
So, now I’m a bit older, and somewhat wiser. I have come to love my Leah-ness. Why? Because it forces me to rely on God for my self-image and not on other people. The more dependent on God I become, the more independent I am from my own weakness.
Yeah. God has a mighty plan for all of us Leahs. It’s taken me 40 years to figure that out. With a renewed sense of total abandon to God’s will, I will take on the next 40 years with much less fear and a whole lot more trust. And this time…I am trying not to hide behind my music stand quite so much.
1 comment(s) so far...
Re: Their Eyes Met Across a Crowded Room...
40 years is nothing when you think about the grand scheme of things. Now that you have figured it out, you have an eternity to do something with it! AMEN....good stuff. Thanks for sharing. :)
By tammy on
5/11/2010 11:51 AM
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