Rev. Martha Koenig Stone
Henrietta United
Who Would Have
Thought It Would Be Like This?
I often say to my husband, “I need something to look forward
to!” It might be the next family
gathering or the next vacation trip, or the next special event in the
community, or the next project to sink my teeth into—not necessarily something
big, but something to work toward and anticipate.
We are in the midst of a season of dreaming and planning
right now at HUCC. Our Dreaming team is
working on compiling your goals and visions for the congregation and shaping a
mission statement that will guide our work in the next few years. Our Trustees are consulting with an architect
to see what kinds of renovations might be possible for our aging building. Our
planning team for Unwrapping our Gifts is preparing and adventure of
contemplation and story-telling for anyone who wants to explore ways to put
their God-given gifts to work. Our
Habitat House is in the works and is scheduled to be ready by Christmas. And all of our ongoing activities and groups
are fully engaged in their own ministries as well—bookworms and knitters and
singers and teachers and learners and carpenters. There’s a lot to look forward to!
Planning and dreaming and looking toward the future can be
fun! It’s also quite practical. Setting goals, clarifying values, and working
with a purpose brings families and communities together, and helps us get a lot
of good stuff done. It helps us to find
out what’s out of joint or unjust, and what needs attention or fixing. It helps us to find meaning in life and to
feel a sense of accomplishment.
But what if things don’t go as planned? What if the thing you’re looking forward to
never comes to pass? What if, in spite
of all the planning, the project is a flop?
What if someone gets sick, or the vacation is cancelled? Or what if the plans you imagine for yourself
don’t quite correspond with those of your family and friends and community, and
you have to let go of some of your dreams?
What if you just don’t have the money to do all that you had hoped? What if your dreams are never realized, and
your goals have to be abandoned? What if
tragedy strikes, and the course of your life is changed forever?
A colleague told me a story this week of a show she’d seen
on TV called “Beyond Belief.” It was
about two American women, Susan Retik and Patti Quigley. Both women were happily married and had families. Both had big plans—they were each expecting a
child. What a wonderful thing to look
forward to! But on
Surely neither one of them had expected to be raising their
children alone. This was not the life
they had chosen for themselves. How
could they possibly go on, given their tremendous loss and immense grief?
Have you ever had a hope that was dashed? Or a plan you had to set aside because your
life took a different course than you had imagined?
The biblical story of Sarah tells a similar story of
disappointment and grief. Sarah was a
woman of beauty and wealth, with a husband who loved her. She had always dreamed of having a
child. She worked hard to create a safe
and welcoming home, and looked forward to the day when she could provide an
heir for her husband. But as the years
went on and no child appeared, her dream became more and more remote. Sarah grieved, and gave up on her plan.
Then, when she was sixty-five, as if to add insult to injury, her husband came to her and asked her to leave her home and all the comforts she had known, and travel with him to a foreign land she knew nothing about. What should she do? Leave her family and friends behind?
Well Sarah loved her husband, and she trusted him. So she decided to leave behind the life she
had known, and set out to do something new.
Together, they journeyed forth on a new adventure, not knowing quite what
to expect. What would come of this new
life? How would she cope with all the
changes and twists and turns along the way?
Might she have something to look forward to now?
Sarah surely never expected to hear, years later, at age 90,
that the time had come for her to have a child.
This was not what she had planned! This was not the life she had imagined for
herself. And yet, that was what the
travelers told her. What could she
possibly have felt at the time? What was
she thinking when she laughed? Sometimes
I wish we could meet her in person, and ask her….
Laugh? You bet I laughed.
A deep, disgusted, angry, confused
laugh. And Abraham laughed, too, don’t
forget that. Imagine: pregnant at my age! All those years of longing, praying, hoping,
dreaming….for what? Nothing! More wandering, more loneliness, more nasty
remarks form the neighbors: “Oh-how-sad, poor Sarah, barren all these years; I
wonder what sin she’s paying for?”
And then to be told this bad joke: pregnant at ninety. What could I do but laugh? Crying’s out of the question with something
so ludicrous as this.
But then reality—and the anger—set
in. Why now, God? Why after all these years? What’s the point? I’ve never known you to be this cruel!
And yet, after the initial shock, we thought: why not?
God has always been surprising us,
shocking us, pushing the limits just a little more each time, inviting us to
trust in new and unusual ways. Was this
really any different than all the other challenges?
I remember the night after the
messengers had come; Abraham had tipped the bottle a little and crawled into
the tent rather sheepishly, almost like a nervous teenager. He made some silly remark about needing to
sleep with me—how it was God’s will—and we laughed and loved into the
night.
And when it came true—I was
horrified. All of the joy I had once
had, dreaming of giving birth, gave way to deathful fear. And Abraham held me close, and we cried and
questioned together, and wondered, and wondered.
And no small eternity later, Isaac
was born, and I whose dreams had all but dried up held that little bundle to my
breast. And as I watched Abraham hold
him aloft so proud beyond words, I was overcome with joy and thanksgiving for a
God so full of surprises.
Laugh? You bet I laughed.[1]
Who would have thought it would be like this for Sarah? She had given up on her dreams and plans—no
one could have expected this kind of ending to her story! But Sarah had left a place in her heart open
to the stirrings of God and the possibililty of hope. She had summoned up the courage to go to a
new place and try a new adventure. And
when the time was right, she was able to laugh and to embrace God’s plan for
her life.
Oh, she still struggled…pregnanacy is hard at any age, and I
don’t know how you run after a toddler at age 92! And Sarah still had to struggle with feelings
of resentment and envy towards younger women—like Hagar, Abraham’s concubine, ho
had already borne him a son. But in her
best moments, when she let God’s life work in her, Sarah found laughter and
love and hope for the future.
So it was, also, for Patti and Susan. When they lost their husbands, they
grieved. But they did not want their
lives to be ruled by fear and hatred and sorrow. So they looked for an avenue for healing and
hope. And from that search came an
amazing result: they decided to travel
to
In
Who would have thought that these women could find
forgiveness and reconciliation in their hearts?
Yet, this is the reality of our lives: that even in the face of great loss
and grief, healing and hope and reconciliation can work in us. So let us dream and hope and plan
together. And when things don’t go quite
as we had imagined, we’ll know it’s time to look for the new life that only God
can give. We can move forward with our planning and dreaming, knowing that
there’s always something to look forward to!
Because even if things don’t turn out the way we had hoped, we surely
have much to learn and experience and share with one another. With God’s help we know we can find a way to
care and laugh and love. Amen.