I've Been Thinking

So lately I've been reading the Old Testament. I'm actually sort of skimming it over and reading when I find women. As I said in previous posts, I've been interested in finding out more about the women in the scriptures. I'm actually quite surprised at the number of women I have found there. I'm only in Genesis. And of course, so many more men are mentioned when the lists of generations start. Still, there are detailed accounts of many women...like Eve, Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel and Leah. And I'm just in Genesis.

But today, I didn't find a lot of women so there was a good deal of breezing through. Until I came to Joseph being sold into Egypt. Those brothers of his...I can't really imagine what might have possessed them to do such a wicked thing. But in the end, it is Joseph who says that it was meant to be. In fact, he says this to his brothers, "...Come near unto me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life" (Genesis 45:4-5). And then he further says: "And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God..." (Genesis 45:7-8).

Now Joseph had been in Egypt more than nine years. We know this because his brothers come two years into the famine. There were already seven years of plenty. And there are five more years of the famine to go. So seven and two...and then however long he was in Potipher's house serving Potipher...and then however long he was in prison after Potipher's wife framed him. So at least eleven years but probably more. I'm guessing closer to fifteen. Not to mention the fact that 1...his brother's sold him; 2...he was wrongly accused but a lecherous woman because he refused to sleep with her; 3...he was sent to prison for his alleged crimes, crimes he never committed; and 4...even after he helps out Pharaoh's butler, the butler forgets about Joseph, even though he promised to help.

But Joseph is released and good things do happen to him. He's just away from his family for a very long time. Still, he sees the hand of God in what has befallen him. So even if there were hard things, there were blessings. And without Joseph, who knows what would have happened to the tribes of Israel? To the promise made to Abraham and Sarah when they had Isaac all those years before? So there is a method to the madness and a blessing in the curse.

Today has been a...sad day...a restless day...an I can't do it day. But who knows what I will say in a year from now or ten years or even at the end of my life. It is so much easier to see a trial clearly after it is over, to understand it. Even to believe that it was a blessing. I think, though, that today I have to accept that I am tired and that this too shall pass.