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"Sarah: before Mount Moriah"
Like a small mouse I am being played with. Pushed around, sent from home, passed off as a sister, free to be the sport of others (nobody asked me). Nobody asked if I wanted to leave home and all my friends (the cat never asks the mouse). Would my womb have filled if we had stayed where we were instead of following strange promises? My maid, giving my husband a child for me, then made mock of me. So when the angel came announcing--promising-- a child in my womb long dry. What could I do but laugh? And then warmth came again, and fullness, and my child was born, my laughter, my joy.
But do not play with me any more! What kind of logic lurks in your promise that the sky full of stars is like the number of our descendents and then demand the son's like who makes that promise possible? Can I trust a breaker of promises? What kind of game is this? Are you laughing at my pain as I watch the child and his father climb the mountain? Am I no more than a mouse to be played with?
I am a woman. You--father-God-- have yet to learn what it is to be a mother,
and so, perhaps, have I. And if you give me back my laughter again, then, together we can learn and I will say--oh, I will sing!-- that you have regarded the lowliness of your handmaiden.
~Madeleine L'Engle
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