Sarah

 Sarah sat at the entrance of her tent, dusting flour off her hands. Her tired joints creaked so loudly that she thought her husband’s surprise guests might hear them all the way under the tree where they sat eating the meal she’d hastily prepared.  Sarah’s husband, Abraham, stood near the three men, pouring fresh milk into their cups, passing them meat and bread and yoghurt. Sarah had no idea where the men had come from or why they’d chosen to visit Abraham’s camp today, but it was clear from the way he was acting that he thought they were important. He’d greeted them by bowing down to the ground, then dashed back to the tent. “Quick!” he’d gasped to Sarah. “Take some of your best flour and make bread!” Then he rushed off, servants running after him, to prepare the rest of the meal. 

Fanning her sweaty brow with a hand, Sarah stretched out her aching legs. She was getting too old for hurried baking and surprised company. Sometimes it felt like she was getting too old for anything. There had been a time when life had felt full of hope and she’d believed that she and Abraham were destined for greatness, when the things he whispered to her in their tent at night, the promises God had made to him, to both of them, of more descendants than the stars, seemed to fill the whole world with joyful laughter. God had even changed their names from Abram and Sarai as a symbol of the special relationship they had with Him. But many, many years had passed with no signs of God’s promises coming true, and now Sarah felt like if the world laughed, it was because it was making fun of her. 

“. . . Sarah, your wife?” Sarah sat up straight and leaned toward the tent’s entrance. One of the strangers had said her name! She held her breath, straining to hear. 

“She’s there, inside the tent,” Abraham said. 

“I will come back and see you again this time next year,” the stranger said. 

His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried to Sarah’s ears. It seemed like even the birds and insects had fallen silent to listen. “When I come back,” the stranger continued, “Sarah will have a son!”

She gasped. Month after month of her life had come and gone with no sign of a pregnancy. Sarah had counted wrinkle after wrinkle, grey hair after grey hair. Parts of her body that used to be full and firm and flexible had gotten baggy and soft and stiff. 

She’d kept the faith for years, believing God’s promise for Abraham’s sake when she couldn’t for her own. Fifteen years ago, she’d thought she’d had the answer when she’d given her slave Hagar to Abraham as a servant-wife and their son, Ishmael, had been born. She’d thought she could raise Ishmael as her own and build a family that way. But that plan had turned out to be a disaster. And Abraham kept insisting that God still meant for her, Sarah, to have a son of her own. 

Now a stranger was sitting under their tree saying the same thing. Speaking as if with God’s very own mouth. Promising she’d be pregnant within just a few months. Did she dare to hope again? 

The midday sun beat down, shimmering on the desert dust. The jagged rocks and stunted trees seemed to be mocking Sarah. This land is barren, the birds seemed to squawk. Just like you. Long years of shame and disappointment welled up in Sarah’s throat and escaped in a sarcastic huff of laughter. The joy of a child isn’t for a worn-out bag like me, or an old man like my husband, she thought. I won’t be made a fool of again.

“What?” The amazement in the stranger’s voice interrupted Sarah’s bitter thoughts. An incredulous chuckle ran through his words. “Why did Sarah laugh? Why did she say to herself, ‘Can an old woman like me have a baby?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord?”

Sarah's heart pounded. Who was this man, who spoke for God and read her secret thoughts? Fear clawed at her stomach. “I didn’t laugh.” She forced the words through dry lips.

“You did laugh.” The stranger laid her bare, but strangely, Sarah no longer felt afraid. She felt seen and known and loved. And for the first time in many, many years, she felt something begin to grow in her heart, like a tiny green shoot uncurling in the midst of the desert. It felt like hope.