I Want You to Meet Leah
I was all alone at The Gathering Place (our downtown Wheaton office) early one morning. While I was working, a client arrived early for her therapy appointment. After we chatted for just a few minutes, I was overcome with emotion and awe at what this woman was on a mission to accomplish: rebuilding her life. Leah (not her real name), who is in her 40s, is fighting to overcome addiction and trauma from abuse, and she is slowly healing from her time as a victim of commercial sexual experience. She was kind and gentle but also determined and focused. I felt so fortunate to even be speaking with her. What kind of woman can survive what she's experienced and still find the motivation and energy to keep going? And even more, to climb her way out of the evil hands that controlled her life for decades without holding bitterness and anger toward others?
Leah reminds me of Hagar from Genesis 16. Hagar, a foreign-born Egyptian slave, belonged to Sarah, Abraham's wife. Sarah forced Hagar to sleep with Abraham. Through this culturally familiar circumstance, but equally horrific experience, Hagar declares an important and historical theological truth about the character and person of God when she calls Him "You are the God who sees me" (Gen 16:13), which is God's name El Roi. For the original Hebrew audience, the naming of God by a female foreigner would have been directly challenged because of what many believed about women and non-Israelites. Sarita Edwards in Breaking through the Boundaries writes, "While Hagar is the first woman to make a theological declaration about God, she is followed by a list of women who proclaim theological truth about God and/or serve as prophetesses of Yahweh." It is important to remember that throughout the Bible, women often serve as a vehicle for the voice of God, proclaiming God’s truth to the leaders of the day.
Edwards goes on to say that "God’s choice of self-revelation to Hagar, an Egyptian female servant, exemplifies God’s ongoing commitment to extend loving-kindness to all people." While Hagar was on the social margins of her community, a total outsider, she had a theological revelation about God that contributes to our understanding of God today.
What if Leah is that for us now? Or for the dozens of other women that Naomi's House will serve this year? When you are marginalized and considered an outsider because of what you've been through, do you perhaps know God in a deeper or more personal way? It makes me think that Survivors have a message for all of us...something to share about God that we all might need to hear. What an incredible gift we have to hear from women like Leah and to watch her thrive.
I've been sharing with our team and the community that we are unintimated at the work before us. There is so much to do to fight against human trafficking. But we have one job to do. And that is to continue to provide hope and healing to every woman who has suffered from sexual exploitation. YOU are a part of the story that makes new life available. Thank you for that. I'm confident that Leah thanks you as well.