When a Woman Names God
Loneliness isn’t the absence of people; it’s the absence of belonging. I can feel desperately alone in a room full of people if I feel like I don’t belong—if I feel invisible and unimportant.
We all know what this kind of loneliness feels like. And we are wired to actively avoid those spaces. God made us for deep and intimate connection. To know and be known. Just as the trinity lives in perfect communion, we too are designed to live in community with one another.
The Old Testament contains three archetypes (or images) of loneliness: the stranger, the orphan, and the widow. In his dealings with Israel, God frequently exhorted them to look out for and show kindness to these three groups of people. He was speaking of real historical individuals, but I also believe we can apply these passages more broadly. We are not all actual strangers, orphans, or widows—but we all have experiences in life that cause stranger, orphan, and widow impact in our souls.(1)
The Old Testament tells us the story of one person who exemplifies these stranger, orphan, and widow experiences—Hagar. Not only was Hagar a servant, but she was also a foreigner who had been abandoned by the father of her child. We could certainly say she was a stranger and widow and her son an orphan. They did not belong; they were cast out. But Hagar’s two encounters with God show us God’s deep heart for the lonely.
In Genesis 16, newly pregnant Hagar ran away because her mistress, Sarai, had begun abusing her, and Sarai’s husband Abram, the father of Hagar’s child, refused to protect her. The angel of the Lord found her near a spring in the desert and told her to return to Sarai, but he promised: “I will greatly multiply your offspring, and they will be too many to count” (Gen 16:10 CSB). In saying this, God gave her a similar promise to the one he gave to Abram—the blessing of multiplication.
The Lord also prophesied about the destiny of her unborn son, saying, “…You will name him Ishmael [God hears], for the Lord has heard your cry of affliction” (Gen. 16:11 CSB).
Hagar knew very little about God (at that point in history, very few did). Perhaps she had heard of him while serving Abram and Sarai, but it’s likely she worshipped gods from her homeland. Yet after this encounter with God, Hagar became the first person in scripture to give God a name: “‘You are El-roi [God sees me],’ for she said, ‘In this place, have I actually seen the one who sees me?’” (Gen. 16:13 CSB).
After the angel of the Lord left, Hagar returned to Sarai as he had commanded her, and she gave birth to Ishmael. All seemed well until Sarai (now called Sarah) finally birthed her promised son—Isaac. By then, Ishmael was 14 years old, and Sarah became jealous for her son’s birthright. She told Abram (now called Abraham), “Drive out this slave with her son, for the son of this slave will not be a coheir with my son Isaac” (Gen. 21:10).
Once again, Hagar and Ishmael were cast out, wandering in the wilderness until their water ran out. Hagar then left Ishmael under a bush and sat at a distance, unable to bear the pain of watching her son die. But “God heard the boy crying” (Gen. 21:17), fulfilling the meaning of Ishmael—“God hears me.” The angel of the Lord then spoke to Hagar from heaven, telling her not to be afraid because he had heard the boy crying and would make him into a great nation. When Hagar opened her eyes, she saw a well. She filled her waterskin and gave Ishmael a drink. From then on, God was with Ishmael, and he grew and prospered in the wilderness.
Hagar wasn’t part of God’s plan for Israel, but Abraham and Sarah used her because of their impatience with God. She didn’t ask to be a surrogate wife or to get pregnant with her master’s child. She certainly didn’t ask to be abandoned twice or to risk death in the wilderness. She found herself in stranger, orphan, and widow places at no fault of her own.
Even though Abraham and Sarah did not truly see her, God did. Though she didn’t yet know him, he revealed himself to her. Remarkably, Hagar is the first woman in scripture (after Eve) to personally encounter God. Her loneliness became a doorway for encounter.
In Hagar’s story of loneliness, God revealed himself to her as the God who hears and the God who sees. He had not abandoned her. He saw her plight and the injustices she and Ishmael had faced, and he made a way for them.
He does the same for us. As the psalmist later declared, “God sets the lonely in families...” (Ps. 68:6 NIV).
When we find ourselves in lonely spaces, God sees us, he hears our cries, and he leads us into places of belonging. Like he did with Hagar, God wants to reveal himself to us so that we too can say, “I have seen the one who sees me.” So that we too can name him with our testimonies.
The God who sees me.
The God who heals me.
The God who makes a home for me in his heart.
Endnote
1. Dr. Dan Allender and Cathy Loerzel, MA., Redeeming Heartache (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2021).
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