I Was Unloved
I lived at a time, in my personal opinion, when the men in my culture were not the brightest. They preferred boys over girls but used the females to give birth to their pride and joy, their greatest delight. It was not enough to be less desirable in gender, but females had to compete with other females.
The Biblical record indicates that I gave birth to Jacob's only daughter Dinah and six of his twelve sons. My mother's name is not recorded, but you know me as Laban's daughter and Rachel's sister. My name is not as common as 'Mary or Martha' but perhaps you know someone name Leah. If you do, then you will not mind taking the time to read about me, a lady name Leah.
Case in point. Rachel was my younger sister, and the two of us were given in marriage to the same man. I never held it against her as it was no fault of her own, but because of her beauty, I was not loved by our husband as was Rachel. In a sense, our drama was another form of the beauty and the beast. In other words, my sister was respected and appreciated, but I felt being taken along for the feast. Can you imagine how I felt that first wedding night when Jacob discovered that I was not Rachel? That's right. I was used as a ruse by my father and rejected by my husband. Some things can only be healed by God.
God saw that I was not loved and over time, he moved lovingly on my behalf. There might be a natural principle that says, "Hurt people hurt other people", but there is a higher principle that enables hurt people to heal hurt people. One can rise above 'that loveless feeling', that casted life of both parental and marital abuse. Sometimes we are categorized and treated as the 'least of these', but God sees us differently and allows us to rise like yeast. I was loved by God more than any parent or husband ever could.
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