Saturday 1 November 2014

LEAH

It’s becoming a trend these days to see young women get pregnant just to get a man to marry them. What’s annoying is to hear some complain after accomplishing their mission that their “husbands” would hear nothing of their babies, let alone give them any attention or show them affection. This is mostly a bad idea.

In the twenty ninth chapter of the first book of the bible, we meet Leah – Laban’s older daughter. The first few verses that introduce us to Leah put her in comparison with her sister, Rachel; “Leah had lovely eyes, but Rachel was shapely and in every way a beauty”. Apparently, it was the stunningly beautiful younger sister that Jacob wanted for a wife. But Leah was married off to Jacob, even though he didn’t choose her.

Leah was like one of today’s women, married to a man who didn’t love her. In spite of Jacob’s betrayal and plans to get Rachel - the wife of his choice, the real love of his life - Leah kept a glimmer of hope, believing that someday she would be cherished and adored by her husband.

The bible tells us that the lord saw that Leah was unloved, so he gave her a son and she named him Reuben meaning “look, it’s a boy”. She said to herself, “this is a sign that God has seen my misery and a sign that now my husband will love me because I have given him an heir”. Bearing her husband a son didn’t do the trick; she was still unloved. She bore another boy and christened him Simeon which means “”God heard”. Again, she said to herself, “Jehovah heard that I am still lonely and gave me another son, my husband will love me now”. This still did not make her the chosen one. Leah gave birth a third time to a boy and named him Levi (meaning connected). For she said “surely now my husband will be drawn to me since I have given him three sons. How wrong she was! She was still not loved, well maybe not just as much as Rachel.

Leah conceived once more and gave birth to yet another boy. This time, she called her son Judah which simply means praise. She had said “now I will praise the lord”. She simply put her trust and her love in God this time and gave up trying to win her husband’s affection through her efforts. God did accept her praise alright. Judah, her last son for whom she praised God was the patriarch of David’s lineage, of which Jesus was also a descendant. And no doubt, God had been listening to her cry when child after child, she still couldn’t get her husband to fall in love with her. Of course, He saw that she was lonely and brokenhearted but He wanted her to realize that He was sufficient for her and she eventually did.

Getting pregnant or having a child just to make a partner stay back in a relationship is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Once a child is on the way, it becomes socially and morally unacceptable for partners to walk out. They feel compelled to remain in the relationship, no matter how unhappy they are in it. The saddest part of this is that often times, the stress of bringing up a baby eventually proves too much for the partners and the relationship breaks up regardless – only now an innocent being must bear the brunt of it.

Sometimes too, having a baby is often used to prod an unwilling partner down the aisle. The confusing twist to this is that while s/he may be willing to stay in the relationship and even be a parent, they may not be ready to get married just yet. Societal expectations bear upon the reluctant partner to get married and “do the right thing” by the baby and for the relationship. Now, any marriage which is entered into by compulsion, no matter how noble the reason behind it, usually has very slim chances of happiness, fulfillment or even survival.

It is a huge blunder to believe that having a baby is going to make your partner a new person or have him accept you overnight. Not only is an individual unlikely to alter his/her personality, having a baby for this reason and under such pretensions is extremely unfair on the child who needs people to look after it willingly and with love. This is not to say that having a baby leaves no impression on a person’s mental makeup, only that any change should be motivated from within and not imposed by external circumstances.

No doubt, the worst reason to get pregnant are; doing it to save a relationship or to get the marriage title. In all likelihood, it won't work. If anything, it will only make things worse and painful. It's terribly unfair to the baby you're bringing into the world, and even to the unwilling parent.

I'm always flabbergasted by women who go and get themselves pregnant in the hopes that they will either nail down a husband or keep a man from leaving. If they want to go, they'll go. Plus, a man will get married when a man wants to get married. A baby isn't going to change their minds, ask Leah. If she couldn't succeed in getting her husband to love her after bearing him sons, how much less a man who isn't yet yours?

Let your relationships take their natural course and bloom.