Cari Willis

Years ago, when I wanted to make a change in my career, my father asked me “are you running away from your current job or are you running to the new job?” I had to really stop and ask myself what I was doing. I had never thought in those terms before, so what was I doing? I always think so positively; surely I was running “to” the next job … but was I?

I was struck with a sudden realization this week while reading my Bible. In Genesis 16:7–9 it reads as follows (and I will paraphrase here): “The angel of the Lord said ‘where have you come from and where are you going?’” which receives the response “I am running away.” How many of us are running away? How many of us when things get tough and too hard run away? In this text, the angel is talking to Hagar who has just been mistreated by Sarah because Hagar is pregnant with Abraham’s child. So, in my way of thinking she has every right to leave. She is pregnant, so she needs to protect the child and therefore she must run away from the mistreatment, right? But what does the angel ask? “Where have you come from and where are you going?”

“Where have you come from?” All of us, especially for the more gray-haired ones of us, have experienced things in our “from” that have brought us to the place that we are today. Our “from” could include things like: “I was an abused child, so I am now in an abusive relationship with my husband.” “I was told I was worthless as a child, and so now I am into drugs and alcohol.” “I was told I wasn’t pretty, and so I suffer from depression and lack of self worth.” We hear these stories of where people were from and understand why they are at the place they are in their lives. Our “where we have come from” becomes the definition of who we are. We feel that it has set the course for our lives.

As one of my good friends said “we all have something”—meaning we all have something in our lives that makes us less than perfect. Sometimes we wear that imperfection on our bodies through the wheelchair we are in or by the fewer fingers that we have on our left hand. Others of us have inward things in our lives that others cannot see, like unrelenting grief because of the loss of a parent at an early age, or bruises on our hearts because of emotional abuse.

But what are we going to do with these “somethings” that we have? Where are we going with them? Are we running away? It may surprise you that in this story, Hagar is told to go back to her home. In other words, running away will not solve her problems. She needs to confront her issues for what they are and make her life from there. There is a promise of great things if she goes back.

But realistically in our society, the last thing we want to do is “go back.” We are a “next thing, next place” kind of society. Go back? Go back to the mistreatment? No thank you! Running away seems like a great option to me. And of course, we rationalize that it really is not running away, it really is running “to” because surely we will have a better life on the other side, right?

And yet, all at the same time we think the best thing for others to do is to use their past to help others in their future. Ideally we want to hear from others, “I was abused as a child, so now I work with abused children as I understand where they are coming from and what they need.” But this means going back to a place of pain and confronting it on a daily basis. This is profoundly difficult for us emotionally. However, it is also profoundly healing. Because as we help others heal we find ourselves being healed as well.

We are all left with the questions that we must answer for ourselves: Where have you come from and where are you going? What are you doing with those things from where you come? Are you running away or running to?