She Laughed

I've been thinking about the fact that the bible has a lot of stories about barren women. Well, not a lot in comparison to how many Psalms there are or how many times Jesus talks about money, but a fair number - it seems to have been a common problem among God's chosen women. And I find this intriguing.

So I've also been thinking about writing a series of meditations on my own experience with infertility and the experiences of these biblical women. I'd like to take pieces of their stories and reflect with them - there could be a number of meditations for each woman. The first one, below, is called "She Laughed" (you can guess who the subject is, I'm sure). It's not complete - when I re-read it now, after writing it several months ago, it sounds more bitter than I had intended - but I'd appreciate feedback, or at least a potential audience. These are not intended for preaching, by the way, but more as written material to ponder with.

Here goes.

She Laughed

They said to him, “Where is your wife Sarah?” And he said, “There, in the tent.” Then one said, “I will surely return to you in due season, and your wife Sarah shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent entrance behind him. – Genesis 18:9-10

I wonder what Sarah was thinking when she heard that. Who knows if the bible counts days and years the same way we do now – maybe Sarah wasn’t quite 90 when the angels showed up at their tent – but she was old, too old, and she knew that, and Abraham knew it too. And then she stands eavesdropping on the conversation between her husband and these three strangers, and hears the words she must have found completely, totally, utterly unbelievable.

In spite of the raging availability of angels nowadays – in ceramic, plasticine, or quilted form at least – I would have absolutely no idea what to do if three guys showed up at my door and one of them mentioned to my husband that I was going to have a son. This is part of the trick that infertility plays on your mind. Over and over again, like a terrible loop in your head, runs the phrase whispered as a chorus: I’m never going to have a baby. However old Sarah actually was, and however long she had waited to get pregnant, I’m sure it was a lot longer than I’ve been waiting at this point. I’m also quite sure that peeing on a stick, in bible times, was much less helpful than it is now for predicting ovulation and possible pregnancy. Though that whole striped-reeds thing worked well for Jacob…I might have to check that out.

But there’s also the divine-visitor aspect of it. I’m a bit jealous of Sarah over that one. Much better than an EPT. Gender prediction, even! I don’t anticipate angels arriving at my door with such an announcement. Doctors can be angelic, in the original sense: the idea of serving as messengers, as proclaimers of good news. But this is not the same thing.

I wonder how long it took before Sarah gave up hope. Was it after Ishmael? Was it even before that? Was it when her sisters had children, and her neighbors, and that girl down the street who got pregnant by accident? Did she cry herself to sleep at night? Did she rage against the totally unfair nature of it all? Because I feel sure that she had given up hope by the time the angels arrived. That’s why she laughed – because the idea was beyond ridiculous. If she had still been praying for a baby, still been secretly, even in the deepest part of her heart, hoping for one, she would not have laughed. She would have cried then, tears of relief and joy. You only laugh when a thing is so inconceivable as to be a joke.