Is there Purpose in Suffering? A Perspective from Hagar

I don’t know why some of us have more of our fair share of trials and troubles in this world than others, even when we are following God and doing all the right things. I admit sometimes when I’m in the thick of it, my faith is shaken and I question not only God’s purpose in my suffering, but his love for me. Does anyone else relate? But I’m beginning to see the bigger picture in our suffeirng.

After the move, I thought after everything was settled with my mom and me moving into her old house. I thought I would be able to take a break from the struggles. But that break was short-lived when I had a clogged plumbing line in October followed simultaneously by an unrelated hot water tank that quit working.

Being raised by a single mom, there was always a plumber or electrician in the family. And during my 20-year marriage, my then-husband could do it all. Unfortunately I knew nothing about home maintenance, that’s why I wanted to rent… until my mom couldn’t live by herself anymore. So I follow God’s leading out of the frying pan and into the fire, so it felt.

Things in my new tiny home were crowded and congested. I had to get rid of furniture and a lot of my stuff that just didn’t fit. It was another painful pruning process, but I accepted God’s will. Then enter the house problems. I got off pretty cheap with the plumbing issues, but opted for a new $1000 tankless water heater because to “fix” the old one would be half that much and there would be no guarantee it would be fixed.

After a month of no hot water and having to boil the water and use my grandmother’s big bread-making bowl to wash my hair, it was heaven to finally have hot water… for about a month. Until the great freeze of 2022. First, the hot water pipes froze. Figures the cold would be fine. Then when I thought that issue was resolved, they froze again. And when I was praising God for a working furnace and a warm and toasty home, yep, that went out too. And in the same day my car battery wouldn’t work.

Problems kept piling on one after another on top of each other. Can anyone else relate? Not to mention all the things I’m dealing with my mom’s declining health and trying to get her the care she needs without me having to interrupt my work and run over there several times a week. It’s enough to cry out to God and ask “Seriously, but why?”

After hearing my “troubles,” a friend directed me to the story of Hagar, I assume to encourage me. But in the mist of my trials by three it just discouraged me. I started to relate to Hagar who in my reading seemed to have no choice but to father her Sarai’s husband’s child. But she was obedient and did. Maybe she was happy for the opportunity. It may have been her only way of having children, I don’t know. Either way, not a position I’d ‘want to be in. Then when she gets pregnant. I can imagine she got a little haughty and prideful with Sarai who later ended up mistreating her (with Abram’s permission.) So Hagar flees… only to cry out to God who tells her she will have a son who will fight everyone, but he will have many descendants. (My paraphrase. I suggest you read Genesis 16 yourself.) Then he told her to go back “home.” The bible says she feels seen by God, but that promise over her son and telling her to go back to be abused doesn’t sit well with me. But my tiny mustard seed of faith knows that God had to have a better plan and purpose. So I push through my discomfort and the fact that that’s how I’m feeling: a little like Hagar who was asked to go back into a painful (obviously abusive) situation. (Genesis 16). But what I didn’t see and what she couldn’t know is that there was so much more to the story and God’s plan.

“Hagar: She Who Speaks with God” by Elizabeth Tracy sheds a little more light on the situaiton. “The angel’s command to “return and submit” (Gen 16:9) reverses Hagar’s flight. To some this command is insensitive and oppressive. The verses that follow, however, display God’s focus on Hagar’s future. She won’t return defenseless or with the same status. She will return with strong promises received directly and personally from God.”

And the fact that Hagar names her son Ishmael (God hears) “forces the focus back to Hagar—“God has heard of your afflictions”—meaning Hagar’s situation.” So there is definitely more to the story than what I’m reading. God really did see her.

So fast forward about 10 years, give or take, and her son, Ishmael is causing trouble (which God promised her he would) and she flees again, but eventually realizes she and her son are going to die. So she cries. It’s not clear if she cries out to God, but it appears that God only shows up when he hears Ishmael crying? And I’m thinking… why? Why didn’t he show up for Hagar? A friend pointed out Hagar’s concern was for her son. Just like any good mother, she puts him above her own needs, or perhaps she felt like God wouldn’t come to her rescue because he sent her back in that situation to begin with. Maybe she didn’t understand her purpose in her suffering. No one really knows, but again, I’m feeling a little like Hagar.

The next scripture is all about her son. Nothing more is said of Hagar and it had me wondering all sorts of things. Especially how she had to struggle to keep him alive as a single mom. But the boy grew and thrived into a great nation. But what about Hagar? It didn’t say. And it made me start to wonder. Did Hagar feel uncared for, unwanted, and forsaken? Just like I’ve felt so many times over the course of my life.

The same friend that pointed out Hagar was concerned for her son’s welfare also pointed out later, after Sarai (now Sarah) died, Abraham remarried. Some theologians believe Hagar was Abraham’s second wife, and I’d like to believe that too because I believe in a redemptive God that sees our pain and hears our cries for help even if we’re too broken to realize we deserve love too.

I love what Tracy says “When Hagar is removed physically from those who control every aspect of her life, a personal identity and relationship materializes. As a socially marginalized woman, her most intimate relationship, it turns out, is with God.”

That puts things in a different light. And I begin to relate to Hagar even more who has had to rely on God when every aspect of her life feels out of control.

So back to the original question. Why do some people have more than their fair share of problems and suffering? After having some strangers come to my rescue and one able to fix my furnace, I believe it’s because without our problems and hardships we’d probably live in an isolated bubble of self-sufficiency, and I think God shows up best when he shows up through others. When we rely on him completely to provide for our needs.

Now when I think of Hagar, I imagine she had a community of people who came to her rescue to help raise her son. I also believe her walk of faith was day by day. Maybe hour by hour. I like to think God may have been silent for a reason like he often is with us. That he was silent so that she would be forced to listen closely to his leading. And in the end, what was taken away from her, her family, to Abrahand her “husband” was restored to her. If she had not gone away and suffered all the hardships in raising her son, then she might never have found her way back. She may never had known that God truly does see her afflictions and hears her cries for help. She may never have learned to rely on him and had an intimate relatioship with him no other woman at that time did.

That’s the Hagar I’m identifying with today. Not the one who was foresaken and cast away, but the one who returned home with a forgiving wholey healed heart and received the fullness of the blessings of God on his time as Abraham’s second wife.