Starved For Affection

Starved for Affection

Leah

Read: Genesis 29:21-35

Cindy frowned as she glanced at her husband across the room, absorbed in the sports pages. Funny how he remembers the batting averages of every Cubs player but forgot my birthday last week, she mused. The coming weekend, he would be glued to the bleachers at the stadium or to the television for the big game. Cindy sighed and returned to her romance novel, in which the heroine was admired and valued.

Like Cindy, Leah felt like a second-place wife. After being overshadowed for years by her beautiful younger sister, Leah experienced the ultimate humiliation when her father tricked Jacob into marrying her. To add to her disgrace, Jacob married Rachel just one week after he married Leah. She must have dreaded the years ahead as she shared her husband with a woman he loved enough to work fourteen years to marry.

God saw that Leah was unloved and gave her children, while Rachel remained barren for several years. Leah gave birth to three sons, all the while hoping that their births would cause Jacob to love her. When the fourth son was born, she exclaimed simply, “Now I will praise the LORD!” Leah’s focus had shifted from her yearning for a husband’s affection to faith in God.

Many wives feel that they have been replaced in their husbands’ hearts by a job, television, hobbies such as fishing or hunting, or even by a ministry. Other women are hurt by parents who treat them as less important than a sibling. Whenever someone on earth doesn’t love us as much as we would like, we can know that Someone in heaven cherishes us more than we can imagine. He will take care of us as he did Leah, who had the great privilege of giving birth to Judah, through whom God’s own Son would come to earth.

I have loved you with an everlasting love.

Jeremiah 31:3 (NIV)