Thursday, 22 October 2015

Letter to Ephraim (Gen 48)


Dear Ephraim,

I wonder what it was like for you when you were taken in to see your grandad. We don’t know how old you were but that you were young enough to sit on his knee.

You were being taken in to see somebody ill and old and I am guessing the atmosphere would have been anxious. Were you scared by what was going on?


Then there was the blessing your brother was meant to get, in your dads eyes. I wonder if Jacob was remembering he was the younger son. There seems an important pattern in Genesis of showing that the eldest son is not necessarily the one who gets the blessing. This I increasingly realise as we go through is counter-cultural. That’s why Joseph got so upset, because Jacobs actions were going against what seemed to be the correct social order.

I think this is an important thing to take on board, that the “right choice” is not always God’s choice. I find this helpful because when I look at myself and my husband and I often think, “God have you made a mistake?” Why have you given me the calling you have and called my husband in the way you have? Do you not know who we are and the labels attached to us?



I know this is a note rather than a letter today, but I don’t want you to think this is not an important one. Your story has underlined to me something important.

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