Sarah
Welcome
back to the Oprah show. Let's bring out my first guest for the day,
Sarah. Come on out and join us, Sarah! (Sarah comes out and
Oprah
welcomes her with a hug.)
Please have a seat, Sarah. I am so excited
to have you here on my show.
Thanks, Oprah. I am very
excited to be here!
Okay
Sarah, let's get started. Can you tell
us a little bit about yourself? How did you come to meet your husband
Abraham?
Well,
this is going to sound odd,
but this was definitely more acceptable in the Bible days. Abraham was
actually my brother. That is he had the same father as me, but we
had
different mothers.
Wow,
that is definitely...um interesting to
say the least! Can you tell me about the covenant that God made with
Abraham, promising that he would have many descendants, and how you
were involved in this?
Well,
one day when Abraham and I
were traveling to the land of Canaan, God appeared to Abraham and spoke
to him. They made many agreements. One big thing that God
promised to Abraham was many descendants. This did not mean that
Abraham and I were going to going to have many children, but God did
promise us at least one.
So,
God promised you at least one child,
but why was this promise so hard to believe?
It
was so hard to believe because
at the time Abraham was ninety-nine years old, and I was ninety.
Clearly way past
the age to bear children!
What was your reaction to this when
you heard about it? Because I know if someone ever told me this I would
probably die laughing. It sounds so unreal!
That
is exactly what I did. I
laughed. It was so hard to get a grasp on. I was so old. And as much as
I wanted a child, I just did not think it was my destiny. The
realization of that made me very sad, so I decided to take matters into
my own hands.
So,
what did you do?
I
convinced my servant Hagar to
sleep with my husband so that he could have his child.
Wow,
I cannot imagine ever making a
decision like that. Did you regret it afterwards?
Yes!!
I felt terrible after. I
could not believe I had made such a rash decision. I wanted my husband
to have the son he wanted so bad, that I lost my faith and decided
to take things into my own hands, instead of trusting
God to help
me.
Did
Hagar conceive a son?
Yes,
unfortunately she did. And I could not live with this. It made me feel
very depressed. I thought if Abraham was happy by having a child with
someone else, I would be happy, too. I compromised my own feelings for
his.
That
would be so hard. Okay, you talked
about Abraham's covenant with God; how did God feel when he confronted
you about your actions with Hagar?
He
was obviously not very happy. I
mean, how would you feel if someone did not trust you?
Especially if he had done nothing to show me that I should not trust
him.
But
did God keep his promise to you? Did you eventually end up pregnant?
One
night some angels appeared to
me in a dream. They told me that they realized that I was getting very
old and tired. Although I had some moments when I could not wait
any longer, they explained that God knew I had waited patiently for the
most part, and that I deserved now more than ever to bear a child.
And the next day I woke up, and I was pregnant with my first son, who
was to be named Isaac.
Describe
to me what you were feeling at this time.
Honestly,
I laughed, once again. That was just my first reaction. This whole
situation was almost bogus. So, all I could do was laugh. But laughing
was good. It showed that I was truly ecstatic. I could not believe I
was actually with child! It was miraculous!
Okay,
wrapping up, what was the big lesson you learned throughout this?
Obviously this was very hard for you to overcome,
but once you finally
did, what did you get out of this situation?
You
know how everyone says
"patience is a virtue"? Well, I can definitely agree. I could not even
express to you how much I learned about having patience, and knowing
that when the timing is right, things will most certainly happen for
me. But you have to be patient and wait, because things are not always
going to come right to you, and things are not always going to be
exactly the way you imagined. But have patience and you will be
prosperous. Also, you must have faith. Have whole-hearted faith and
trust that God knows what he is doing with you life.
Wow,
those are some powerful lessons. Thank you so much, Sarah, for coming
on
my show and sharing your powerful story.
Thank
you for having me, Oprah- it was my pleasure!
Okay, we're going to go
another quick commercial break, and next Queen Esther is going to join
us! Stay tuned!
Author's Note: First off, a little note about this specific story:
if you could not tell, Oprah's words are in black, and Sarah's words
are in red. I wanted this story to be viewed as a flowing
conversation.
I took the story of Sarah from the Bible. I have made
some changes to this story. First of all, Sarah's story was kind of
spread
out among many different chapters in the book of Genesis, so I just
took the bits and pieces from each chapter and kind of ran them
together. Also, there is more to Sarah's story within Genesis, but I
only felt the need to touch on the part about her struggle to get
pregnant. I only chose to elaborate on that portion because I felt that
was the most inspiring aspect of her story, which is what I am trying
to focus on for my storybook. Also, I added the part about the angels
visiting Sarah. There were actually some mysterious guest who visited
Abraham in Genesis 18. I just wanted to incorporate that into my story,
by moving the focus to Sarah, not just on Abraham.
Of course, I'm not saying Sarah did not do
anything else that was inspirational. For example, before the whole
pregnancy
situation, she and Abraham were traveling to Egypt for a spiritual
journey. While they were there, Abraham made Sarah pretend she was his
sister, because she was so beautiful that he was afraid that if the
Egyptians found out she was his wife, they would kill him. This
situation had to
be hard for Sarah who basically had to live a lie. The Pharaoh took her
in, and was preparing to marry her, while all along Sarah
had to pretend she was not married. This was definitely not an easy
task, because if she were slip up about her marriage to Abraham, then
they would both probably be killed. But eventually Abraham told the
Pharaoh, and they were able to both leave alive. To read about this
episode and other
episodes from Sarah's life that I did not include, check out the links
on the bottom of this page.
Story: The Bible, New
International Version
Book:Genesis
Chapter(s): 12-23
"Genesis 12." BibleGateway.com.
Image of Sarah and the Angels. Web Source: FINE-ART.COM
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