Stripped: Trusting God When He Allows Others to Hurt YouSample

A few years ago, I was reading the story of Joseph in Genesis. I’ve always been fascinated by his story, and it has been instrumental in my life since I was a little girl. That year alone, I had studied five different teachings based on the story, each one ministering something new. A persistent nudge in my spirit compelled me to read it again. And what happened that morning was one of those unexpected encounters with God that had a profound impact on the trajectory of my life in the years that followed.

Frequently, God shows up or speaks when we least expect it. The Bible is full of stories of these surprise encounters, miracles, and transformations. God loves the unexpected. He comes like lightning in a let-there-be-light kind of roar, or in a small but perceptible whisper in the wind. Not late, just when we weren’t thinking it would happen. Unexpectedly. That morning, a verse I had read dozens of times gripped my heart as though I were reading it for the first time. I paused for a minute, acutely aware of God’s yearned for presence. “I think you are going to speak to me, Holy Spirit. Open my heart to receive your instruction,” I prayed earnestly.

You see, I wasn’t expecting that to happen. If anything, I was reading the Bible out of obedience and desperation, knowing that I needed God’s words more than ever. I was in the middle of a painful divorce and was battling a deep depression. I was looking for answers, searching for light to confront the darkness that threatened to destroy everything I loved. Because only God’s words have that power, I read, prayed, and waited for His response. I could not understand why God allowed me to walk through this terrible brokenness, and why He hadn’t come through for me in my time of need.

My circumstances drove me to doubt all the things I believed God had spoken to me. I couldn’t stop thinking that I had somehow ruined His plans and nothing would ever make sense again.

I was simultaneously experiencing God’s grace in very palpable ways, but the pain was ever present. My heart, aching. The tears, flowing. My soul was weighted by a hopelessness I couldn’t shake no matter what I tried. Even though I was constantly praying, I certainly did not imagine that morning would mark a clear before and after in my story.

Reading Genesis 37, two verses stood out in a different way:

“So when Joseph came to his brothers, they STRIPPED him of his robe—the ornate robe he was wearing—and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty; there was no water in it” (Genesis 37: 23, 24, NIV, emphasis mine).

That was exactly how I felt! Stripped. Naked. Torn apart. Thirsty in an empty cistern, with nothing to quench my pain. Meditating on the verse, I thought about what Joseph’s ornate robe might have meant for him. We know it was a gift from his father, Jacob, and that the other 11 sons did not get one like it. Some translations say it was a robe of many colors, others call it an ornate robe. Whatever the case, it was a distinct piece of clothing, because his brothers identified him from a distance when he was wearing it.

The robe represented the favored position he enjoyed with his father. It was also a cause for jealousy for his brothers and a symbol of Joseph’s identity as the preferred son. He was a literal dreamer with a bright future ahead. At the ripe age of 17, God revealed to him through dreams that his family would bow down to him one day. Of course, that was the last thing the brothers needed to hear! They were so jealous of him they couldn’t speak a kind word to him. And in that one sudden moment, his destiny, identity, and dreams were apparently destroyed by his brothers as they stripped him and threw him into the cistern.

Much like Joseph and his robe, my purpose and what had come to define my life, my family, was torn from me. Plans for my future and my children’s future disappeared in an instant. I was in a pit, an empty cistern with no water, no answers, no meaning, no identity. My ornate robe was gone… I was stripped.

THE STRIPPED

I looked up the definition of stripped and it was descriptive of my state of being: “having had a covering, clothing, equipment, or furnishings removed; having had usable parts or items removed…; having or containing the bare essentials, with no added features or accessories.”

The definition encapsulated what I was living; essential components of my life had been removed, and I wasn’t sure how to move forward. As I thought about the word stripped, the question that immediately followed was, what is the opposite of stripped? Which, based on the definition above, would be clothed, covered, dressed.

I was engrossed with what the Bible said about both things. I uncovered similarities and connections with my life that led me to understand pain and when God allows others to hurt us in a different way.

I wish I could tell you that by the end of that week my attitudes, perspectives on life, and even my theology were radically changed and that depression packed her bags and moved out. But, even though God can and does heal and restore people in an instant, most restoration processes take time. Especially when severe traumas can happen in a matter of minutes, but the healing process can take years.

What God revealed to me that morning established the foundation on which He built a solid structure for the fierce storms I faced. I spent the next five years studying these passages and discovering treasures that were, inconspicuously, healing my broken heart.

Can you identify with Joseph? Can you relate to the feeling of being stripped and thrown into a cistern with no idea how to get out? Maybe you were stripped by those closest to you or by someone who was supposed to love and protect you. Did you plead for mercy to deaf ears? Did you feel as though your identity was lost or altered after it happened? There is no water in your cistern and you struggle to understand where to go from here.

If that is your story, I pray the love of God and the power of His light invades your heart and soul through this study. I believe your story is about to change and that He is reaching out even at this exact moment to embrace and meet you in your brokenness.

To meditate

• Is there something in your life that made you feel stripped? - How has that impacted your life?
• How has it affected your relationship with God?
• What was your “ornate robe” or identity? Has it been altered?