tamar & judah

no pictures today, just words :)

Today I finished reading Unveiled by Francine Rivers. It is from her Lineage of Grace series, which is about the 5 women named in the genealogy of Christ. Unveiled is the story of Tamar and Judah's family. This is the first in the series, but I put off reading it because it was not as drawing as Ruth, Bathsheba, or Mary's stories. 

I decided to read it yesterday(maybe because I ran out of Francine Rivers books...), and was really surprised at all that was going on there. 

I have read this account in Genesis probably around 5 or 6 times before and left it thinking it resolved really awkwardly and never really understood why it was awesome. I know that what I read today was only someone's perception of what may have happened, but it really gave the story meaning and life and context for me. 


Ok, so the things I loved:


1) Judah. I would have never pulled this out of the story, but it was really cool to see someone running from God for something he'd done turn around and find restoration the way he did. It just highlights that if we don't own up and be truthful with our shortcomings, but keep running and pursuing life apart from God, everything will fall apart, but if we are faithful to His heart, He will bless us more than we would expect. Sometimes it takes a mound of our sin to show us how far we are and how desperately we need God to fix things. Francine Rivers pointed out in the study part at the end that Jesus is referred to as the "lion of Judah". That is restoration. 


2) Tamar. She was a Canaanite but held onto hope in the God of Judah because Judah's family was her family. Tamar felt strongly that Judah's God was God, and desired to serve Him despite the lack of example from the family. Anyway... Er (the oldest son) died leaving her to marry the second oldest son, who also died because they were disobedient. Judah sent Tamar away instead of giving her to the youngest son, which would be custom. Tamar waited over six years for Judah to send for her to come back for the youngest son. He never did, so she took things into her own hands, which was weird... but through it, God opened Judah's eyes to his sin and blessed both of them with twin sons to carry on the line of Judah. I love this because even though her situation was horrible, she held onto hope when it was impossible to see any. 


I just feel encouraged by this because the Lord really is sovereign. Even when we don't understand his moving, He knows what he is doing, and if we would just be open and obedient to the Lord moving in our lives, He will be with us. If we don't, things tend to fall apart under our own striving. 


Sorry, just felt like this was really cool stuff, so I thought I'd share it out there with you all in blog land :) 

Makes me wonder what else I am breezing past in the Old Testament that holds a lot more truth than I can see there.