The Suffering Woman

My Bible study has been studying women of the Old Testament. Over and over, I’m struck by how much these women suffered. Some were great examples of faith; some were not. Yet each in her own way experienced suffering. Women of that time, like most times, were treated as lesser to men—somewhere between second class and property. Most had no agency in her life. That makes the stories of individual women that have remained to be handed down that much more powerful—even the men could not ignore these women.

One of the stories that has stuck with me most is that of Leah and Rachel. Leah was the eldest. When Jacob wanted to marry Rachel, he served their father seven years, but Laban insisted the eldest be married off first. So Jacob married Leah, then negotiated for Rachel in return of seven more years. Within a month, the two sisters now shared a husband.

Leah was stuck in a marriage where her husband loved another woman more. She longed for her husband’s love, and it wasn’t repaid. She did nothing wrong, and she gave him several children, yet she could not win his affection, instead watching it be poured onto another. Meanwhile, Rachel had the love of her husband, but she could not bear children—the primary duty of a wife. Her desire to give her husband children and to bear her own children probably weighed on her every month, especially as she watched Leah bear children.

I don’t think the sisters were jealous or competitive. But they each suffered their own heartbreak while having to live alongside another woman who had what they desired, compounding their pain.

And isn’t this the story of woman? Desire to be loved and share love, disappointment, carrying our burdens, carrying on. The courage and strength of women are the intangible victories won in the heart—getting up each morning to suffer and keep going.

Leah never received the favor of Jacob. Rachel did eventually bear two children, but she died in childbirth, naming the son Benoni, “son of my mourning.” Jacob renamed him Benjamin. There is not a happy ending for the mothers of the Twelve Tribes. But their suffering is acknowledged and remembered. They are seen.

And even for the women not chronicled in the Old Testament, they do not suffer forgotten. God sees their pain; he hears their cries. He seeks love and justice and consolation for them. Women are not secondary to God. He knows our longings and their strengths. He knows our obstacles and their weaknesses.

We will suffer. But we can suffer together. We can suffer and remember. We can suffer and love. We can suffer and keep the faith.