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Hagar's Choice (Why the name Hagar?)

 

Hagar’s Choice (Why the name Hagar?) Hagar was an Egyptian princess, cast away by her own people. She worked as a slave to Abraham’s wife Sarah. Sarah was barren and forced Hagar her slave to “be with” her husband. But the sight of Hagar being pregnant with her husband’s child increased the jealousy within Sarah. The infertility of Sarah increased the jealousy.

 

Hagar felt the opposition and headed off to the desert (in a pregnant state). It was in the desert that an Angel of the Lord appeared to her. The angel instructed her to return and to treat Sarah with respect.

 

Hagar returned and gave birth to a son. Sarah also later fell pregnant and gave birth to a son. For a short time everything went well. When both sons reached their teenage years, though, Sarah’s jealousy re-ignited towards Hagar. She then asked Abraham to send Hagar away.

 

Hagar got rejected for a third time and faced the desert once more. Days went by without food or water for both her and her son. Yet once again, God did not forget her and an Angel of the Lord guided them to a place of water (Genesis 12).

 

What can we learn from Hagar’s choices?

Hagar means: “Stranger”.

 

Hagar’s story consists of repeated rejection by her own people in addition to the ones that took her in. Yet every time that she faced certain death, God sent his angels to assist her.

 

Every baby that gets rejected experiences similar feelings / emotions as Hagar in that she wasn’t welcome anywhere, she didn’t have a place to belong to.

 

God is always in control and sent an angel to help Hagar, and she chose to be obedient to God and to listen. She decided, even with her “pregnant body”, to return and face Sarah, even though Sarah didn’t appreciate her presence. Just for a moment, consider the emotions she must have experienced and had to deal with.

 

A woman in those times was seen as property of the owner. Hagar in a sense had no “rights” and no owner / husband to fend for her. But God fended for her.

 

Babies cannot fend for themselves, they don’t have “a voice”, and they are dependent on others for help. God sends angels and people on their path to help them.

 

Similarly to Hagar we choose to take the difficult path, the path less travelled, because helping premature and rejected babies is no easy task. We as a family know what it feels like not to have anything, nowhere to go home to (we have lost all – house, accommodation car, furniture, etc... but God took care of us). We are thus equipped to help the ones that have no place to call home or family and provide a temporary place of security and provision until they get adopted by their forever parents.

 

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