The Wasteland

(I’m in the middle of a Samson fixation.
To help keep the “rhythm,” I’d sure love it if you would
read Monday’s post, “Rhythm,” if you haven’t already.)

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Parched. Desolate. Impoverished.

Empty. Fallow.

Depleted.

This is barren. This is the wasteland.

This is the woman, standing lifeless in withering field, sunscorched. Hands crack open as she labors to find life among brittle stalks, knowing she will never labor to bring life from her own womb, dry and fruitless as this desolate soil.

This woman is nameless, faceless. Known to us even today only as Samson’s mother.

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Hot wind mixed sand with sweat, and the grit scored her cheek as she wiped at it with a caked hand. She was in no state to meet the stranger who appeared beside her as she worked.

He was awesome, this man of God. He looked just like an angel, she told her husband. He was awesome, and she, humble. So much so that she neglected to ask him his name. Or from where he came.

She knew only that he brought news. News she desperately wanted, but never expected, to hear.

You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son. (Judges 13:3)

Baked soil widened its cracks to receive the rainshower as wilting leaves strained upwards to catch tiny droplets and carry them to the roots. The woman pried open her heart to welcome this life into her desolate place.

Manoah, Samson’s father, prepared a sacrifice. They would bear fruit after all, his dry fields and parched wife.

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God, it seems, draws to the arid places. To ones who split open and bleed in the desert sun.

Walk back through Israel’s story, and you’ll see Him come to those such as Samson’s mother. To those who languished for years with no children. They were scorned by their neighbors. Suspected of some secret sin, believed to be under the curse.

They wept into pillows in the dark of night while their husbands sought out more fertile ground for their seed.

They concocted crazy plans, sidestepped God’s direction, nursed jealousy and swallowed bitter pills. They waited, they watched, and they prayed while each day took them further from the promise.

But God came to those broken places. He inserted those women right smack in the middle of redemptive history.

To Sarai, after she sent Abram to sleep with her maidservant, He brought Isaac. Isaac would be the first in that vast nation God promised, the first of his descendants too numerous to count.

To Rebekah, after twenty years of marriage, He brought Jacob, and Esau, his twin. Jacob would be the father of the nation of Israel, spawning the twelve tribes.

To Rachel, after she waited fourteen years to be Jacob’s bride, and after she watched her older sister bear him six sons and a daughter and surrogates bear him four more, He brought Joseph (she would die bringing Benjamin into this life). Joseph would become a ruler in a far away place, saving Jacob’s descendants and moving history forward again.

To Hannah, after enduring years of provocation from her husband’s fruitful wife, He brought Samuel. Samuel would crown David the king of Israel.

And to Elizabeth, after she reached an age far too advanced to bear children, He brought John. John would go before and prepare the way for Messiah.

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He came to those broken places. While all around them men and women made their families, produced their offspring, He came to those who could not bring forth life on their own.

In the most unexpected of places. To the most broken and desolate and hungry, He came. He came and birthed in them what none other could dream to do.

He comes to us in our brokenness. In our desolation.

Not when we are hidden in the clutter of plenty, but when we are cracked open and exposed in our lack.

And He whispers to us in that desert place,

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. (Matt. 5:3-6)

Blessed are the barren, who have nothing to give on their own.

For they will _________________________.

(I’ve been staring at the last sentence for a very long time. I don’t have the rest of it. But, perhaps you do. Would you try your hand at completing this post in the comments? You would bless me if you did.)

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