If Roads Could Talk

by Sandra Gilmore

Through this series of articles, we’ve been on the road, winding our way back to Christmas. Check back each month as we explore even more often-overlooked connections to this sacred event.

Have you considered quitting something? Or should the query be how recently have you considered quitting something? If roads could talk, they’d divulge to you that stops along the road can look like good places to quit. Stops are rarely convenient. In fact, other than refueling or planned picnics, most occurrences are untimely, illprepared, and emotionally draining. Is there anyone we can take inspiration from? And how does that connect to Christmas?

Jacob experienced such stops. His display of perseverance beyond the stops is inspiring for us today. In Genesis 48, we learn of a stop when life ceased as Jacob knew it. Though he had an entourage of family and servants traveling with him, we know of no others close by except Jacob, a midwife, and a newborn. His wife Rachel, the second of two concurrent marriages but the first choice of his heart, lay lifeless beside him. The midwife buoyed Rachel through hard labor, but Rachel’s journey stopped there.

Though heartbroken, Jacob kept going. Scripture tells us he buried his beloved, re-named his son, and then led his entourage “beyond the tower of Eder” (Genesis 35:21). What could have comforted his grieving soul? How did he find strength to keep going? This was not Jacob’s first stop along a road. Jacob’s limp served as a reminder.

His limp came from a night spent wrestling with the Most High whom Jacob had encountered while stopped along another road. That time, Jacob was navigating his way to an intentional, yet uncertain, reconciliation with his brother Esau. Would Esau accept reconciliation, or would he attack for revenge? To minimize potential harm to his family, Jacob split his family into two companies and sent them across the Jordan River. While Jacob camped alone, a man called Prince with God in Hebrew wrestled with the Patriarch leaving Jacob’s hip out of joint and a blessing in place.

When the Lord called Jacob to Bethel, he obediently took both his limp and his blessing along that road too. Genesis 35:5 describes, “And they journeyed, and the terror of God was upon the cities that were all around them, and they did not pursue the sons of Jacob.”

Jacob limped farther and had to stop again. This stop required Jacob to build an altar of worship and to grieve the life of Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse. Jacob pressed on. His next

stop mirrored his last. He built an altar at Bethel and then, not too far up the road, we pick up the story again where his beloved Rachel died while giving birth to their son. Knowing his journey was incomplete, Jacob again traveled toward the goal, which was to “pitch his tent beyond the tower of Eder, (Migdal Eder).”

Throughout his journey, Jacob relentlessly pursued the next God-appointed starts and stops, despite those stops looking like good places to quit. He trusted that his individual journey lay strategically nestled inside the Lord’s grand plan. (How was Jacob to know Migdal Eder near Bethlehem would become the birthplace of the Savior?) Can we zero in on the place God has called us, despite bumpy starts and frustrating stops? Yes, we can, even if we must limp to get there!

About The Author Sandra Gilmore serves the Lord as wife, mom, and encourager, mostly through writing and speaking, occasionally through cooking, rarely through anything athletic and only because of the mercy and grace of Jesus. You can reach her by email: tandsgilmore@yahoo.com or her website: www.sandragilmore.org