Returning to pain…healed: When God calls you to go back stronger
“Then Sarai mistreated her so much that she ran away from her. The Angel of the Lord found her by a spring of water in the wilderness, the spring on the way to Shur. He said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from and where are you going?” She replied, “I’m running away from my mistress Sarai.”” Genesis 16:6b-8
Let's start with a Curl Check:
Do you feel God has called you back to a place, physically or emotionally, that you claimed you would never return?
Has He strengthened you and now wants for the unfinished work to be completed?
What glory can God get from your return?
Have you laid your pride and fear aside for His protection and peace?
Have you given Him your exhaustion and exchanged your distrust for faith in Him?
Have you allowed God to restore your soul from being belittled and disregarded by others with the truth that you are fully seen and loved by Him?
Running away is the hardest “easy way out.” It’s a mixture of courage and fear, exhaustion and vigor, faith and distrust. God had long-ago called Hagar to Abram and Sarai’s camp. He called her to pain? No, He called her to promise and people caused her pain, but He would bless her life and lineage at her obedient return. She experienced the first recorded theophany in Genesis 16, that’s a visible manifestation of God to humankind…but before we can celebrate that beautiful and miraculous event, we must acknowledge why she initially left: she was a mistreated slave of Abram and Sarai whose humanity was overlooked and belittled. She served this couple, gave up her body, and became pregnant with their wants.
Like Hagar, I’ve run away before. If Mamre was a place for me, it would be Houston, Texas. Dramatic I know, but over a decade ago it called me from my childhood home, it offered me a purpose and tasks, I became pregnant with the wants of those around me there, and was ultimately mistreated personally and professionally. So I ran from it in 2018. I decided on a whim that God was telling me to go to graduate school in another state in order to separate myself from people, this place, and my heartache. How that played out is shared more in my testimony blog post. However, none of that holds weight to what God ultimately revealed to me.
So, how did I end up back in Houston, Texas after making a flat-footed proclamation from my own wilderness that I'd never live here again? How is Hagar's return story important to the encouraged word of homecoming not for our own comfort, but for God's glory?
Well, it gives a practical, imperfect, and honest look at how two different Curls returned to painful places…with healing in their hearts. How God may even call you back to move you forward.
I informed God years ago that returning here was a firm “no".” It was water under the bridge, a finished series, a learned lesson, kick of the bucket, a moment in time, arrivederci and goodbye…okay, you get it. I was done-done with this place that served me much heartache. I know now obviously that God was not…
Hagar was also very much done-done. So done that she ended up in the wilderness, running away from the people and place God had assigned her.
Curl check: God’s assignments aren’t easy and very often don’t make sense to us. Life can misuse you and make you want to quit, but God will not misuse you in His appointment. Abram and Sarai’s treatment of Hagar could have caused her faith in God to deteriorate. Even after all she endured, when she came to her wilderness she still had space in her heart to receive an angel’s directives. We don't know definitively whether Hagar requested to join Abram and Sarai upon their departure from Egypt, if she was rightly purchased by them, or if she was given as a parting gift. We do know that overtime she was used and became hurt. We can so often look at the unrighteous way that people use their relationship with God as reason for us to sever ties with God ourselves. ‘If this is who they serve…if this is how believers behave…if this is what God compels His children to do, I don't want anything to do with this religion or a relationship with Him.’ Thank God Hagar did not choose to believe this, and because she didn't she was able to later openly hear and commune with an angel in her desert.
Like her, do not allow the abuse of others to deter you from living in obedience with the one, true God. Abram and Sarai took God's promise into their own hands (v.2) and caused Hagar to suffer (6). It reminds me of the 2004 movie Crash where all the characters' actions, refusals to change, and personal beliefs all collide in a colossal, consequential mess. When we consider relationships like this, despite how strongly we can influence each others’ lives, God still has the final and concrete say over each of us. You may be in a physical or mental place where your surroundings are more abusive than they are uplifting, maybe you’ve already fled that pain adamant you’ll never look back, but God wants you to still keep your heart open to hearing from Him about that place. He may have great works for you to complete there.
I had so much hurt about what happened while I lived in Houston, Texas that there was no way I could fathom moving back. In 2019 when graduate school did not go as planned, I sought refuge and replenishment with family in Austin, Texas - this was my wilderness. God restored my faith in Him here, gave me stability…and I was still flatfooted that looking back was a mistake. I knew that Georgia was calling my name…random, yes. It was my Shur (7) and this restoration period with God seemed like the perfect preparation for that next chapter.
I then began to have regular, soul-shaking nightmares. I was at the same time yearning for community. Two years in my familial refuge was amazing but it was purposefully isolating, and not to be permanent. My nightmares always consisted of me being under attack or in imminent physical danger inside and outside my home - I had no safety. I was always in Georgia when the attacks happened and I was always alone. Community, however, flashed a memory of Houston: the God-centered connections He had already established and maintained in my move away. So, was I supposed to ready myself to go back to where all my pain once resided? Was Houston where God wanted me to be?
One day, as was my mom's custom, she asked me, “So you would never move back to Houston? Are you sure?” and like all the conversations we had before, I repeated “Never, I will never live there again.” And right then in October 2021, there was a hard drop in my gut because I had just spoken an untruth and knew it.
As a slave to an Israelite couple, treated as a bed warmer and carelessly used for their misguided covenant fulfillment, I'm sure Hagar had a desire for someplace different but no idea on how to get there. She maybe even had nightmares of what a journey to that place would be, but she wanted to get away. I would hope she also held fond memories with Abram and Sarai, and the others in their camp. Not all bad situations are all bad, right? Maybe she remembered a time of laughing with them, dancing with them, cooking and cleaning with a sense of purpose. But when misuse entered the situation and God's will was lost in mankind’s desires, she too told God “I'm going to run away and never come back.”
Then the Angel of the Lord said to her, “You must go back to your mistress and submit to her mistreatment.” The Angel of the Lord also said to her, “I will greatly multiply your offspring, and they will be too many to count.” Genesis 16:9-10 HCSB
Curl check: you may still be pregnant with something that needs to be birthed in a particular place, for a specific lesson and blessing that you've left too soon. God sees you and the predicament you're in, and He wants you to know that He may call you back to a place of mistreatment but you won't feel every bit of its pain any longer. Yes, when Hagar returned to the camp she likely was scolded, the aimed abuse probably continued, Abram’s throw-up-his-hands demeanor still lingered, and Sarai still saw red when she looked at her Egyptian slave. But I have to believe that when an angel of God shows up in your wilderness and calls you back to a place of pain…when your adamancy softens into obedient anticipation towards something and your hardened heart gives way to the Spirit, God may not remove the misuse from that place, but He will make it so that you do not feel every bit of its hurt.
How do I know this?
Jesus is the evidence:
“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.” John 16:33
“I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give is a gift the world cannot give. So don’t be troubled or afraid.” John 14:27
Then Nehemiah the governor, Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who were interpreting for the people said to them, “Don’t mourn or weep on such a day as this! For today is a sacred day before the Lord your God.” For the people had all been weeping as they listened to the words of the Law. 10c “Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!” Nehemiah 8:9, 10c
Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff protect and comfort me. Psalm 23:4
He told them, “My soul is crushed with grief to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” 39 He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” 42 Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed, “My Father! If this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will be done.” Mat. 26:38, 39, 42
It's not that Houston was the place to leave or is even now the place to be for me. It was and still is that healed was always the place to arrive at. You and I, Hagar, and especially our Savior show that we can be, go, and live anywhere if we do it with God's peace. You can birth anything with God's provision. Yes, you can even run away and return with God's permission and protection. Growth is not always linear and not just joyous. It's painful and not perfect, but it can be perfected. (Genesis 50:20)
So, I'll ask again: Do you feel God has called you back to a place, physically or emotionally, that you claimed you would never return? Has He strengthened you and now wants for the unfinished work to be completed? What glory can God get from your return? Have you laid your pride and fear aside for His protection and peace? Have you given Him your exhaustion and exchanged your distrust for faith in Him? Have you allowed God to restore your soul from being belittled and disregarded by others with the truth that you are fully seen and loved by Him?
So she called the Lord who spoke to her: The God Who Sees, for she said, “In this place, have I actually seen the One who sees me? ” That is why she named the spring, “A Well of the Living One Who Sees Me.” It is located between Kadesh and Bered. So Hagar gave birth to Abram’s son, and Abram gave the name Ishmael to the son Hagar had. Genesis 16:14-15 HCSB
…and even in the wildernesses they encountered later in their life together, God was always, still with Hagar and Ishmael and caused them to be strong to endure (Genesis 21:14-20).
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