Episode 1: The Whispers of Sarah: Prayers We Are Afraid to Pray

Judy Dunagan: We all know prayer is important. A lot of us pursue it as a discipline every day. But Erin Davis says behind the actual words of our prayers we can have a deep-down whisper. It’s what we really want to say to our God.

Erin Davis: What does our heart whisper to God when it seems He cannot, or will not, or for whatever reason He has not kept His promise to us?

Staci Rudolph: Welcome to The Deep Well with Erin Davis! I’m Staci Rudolph, cohosting this series with Judy Dunagan.

Judy: Hi, Staci! I am so glad to be here with you.

Staci: Me, too! I think we’re going to have a great time.

If you’ve listened to this podcast before, you know Erin says that God’s Word is a deep well. That means you can drop your bucket and pull out truth every time.

Judy: Erin also likes to take us on adventures through the Bible. I love how she likes to connect the dots on topics we might not always think about.

Staci: She’s going to do that in this series, called “Whispers.” Erin’s been searching God’s Word for instances when women whispered.

Judy: Your whispers can speak volumes. Your quiet words can build up or encourage people around you. The things we whisper to ourselves can distance us from Jesus, or they can point us to Him.

Staci: Today, Erin will explore what to do when our whispers include doubts. Here’s Erin.

Erin: When you think of speech that has power, I’d love to know what image pops into your head. Maybe it’s a megaphone. People hold those up to their mouths so that they can broadcast loudly. Or maybe it’s like what I’m talking into right now, a microphone. Or maybe when I ask you, “What do you think of when you hear of powerful speech?” you imagine someone standing behind a podium giving a fist-pouding sermon or a big speech to a loud crowd.

It is true that loud words can be really powerful, but I’m convinced that the real strength comes when we whisper. It’s those things that we say very, very quietly—sometimes it’s those things that we say in the ear of only one person, instead of a huge crowd. In the case of the woman we’re going to look at together, it’s the words she whispered when she didn’t think anyone was listening that really packed a punch.

I’m calling this season of The Deep Well “Whispers.” We’re going to look at the lives of several women, many in the Old Testament and several in the New Testament. One of the things that these women have in common is they left a mark on the story of Scripture, and they did it with a whisper.

It’s always good to start at the beginning, and that’s what we’re going to do in this episode: the first book of the Bible, Genesis. There we find our first whisperer, and her name is Sarah.

The question that Sarah gives you and me insight to wrestle with is, what do we whisper? What do we say quietly, or just in our heart of hearts, or in our most intimate conversations, when we’re talking about the promises of God?

I want to set the stage for you by reading you Genesis 18:1–8. 

Genesis 18:1 says this: 

And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day.

Now, the “him” here in this verse is Abraham. This passage finds Abraham sitting at the door of his tent under oak trees, trying to stay cool. I’m imagining those dog days of summer, when it is too hot to even move, and all you can do is sit on the front porch and watch the ice melt in your lemonade. That’s where we find Abraham in this chapter of Genesis. It says he’s sitting at the door of his tent in the heat of the day, under these oak trees.

Let’s pick it up at verse 2. Remember, again, the “he” is Abraham: 

He lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men were standing in front of him. When he saw them, he ran from the tent door to meet them and bowed himself to the earth.

Now, I already have questions. I can be a bit of a rabbit-trail teacher, but there are just so many trails that I want to explore in the Bible! Now, verse 2 tells us these were men, but we already know they weren’t ordinary men, because on this hot day, Abraham, who we will soon find out was no spring chicken, jumped up from his stoop and he bowed. 

Now, we don’t have to hold that tension for very long, because verse 3 tells us why Abraham reacted so strongly. It tells us he jumped up and said, 

"O Lord, if I have found favor in your sight, do not pass by your servant. Let a little water be brought, and wash your feet and rest yourselves under the tree, while I bring a morsel of bread, that you may refresh yourselves, and after that you may pass on—since you have come to your servant." So they said, "Do as you have said." (vv. 3–5)

Anytime angelic visitors are mentioned in Scripture, it feels very mysterious, and the Bible just describes these visitors as three men, but Abraham’s response shows us these were not three ordinary men. In fact, you might have missed it, but the first three words of this chapter reveal something really remarkable. I’m going to read you Genesis 18:1 again. “And the LORD appeared to him by the oaks of Mamre, as he sat at the door of his tent in the heat of the day.”

It’s the capital L Lord there. In my Bible it’s a capital L LORD with small caps, which means this was the Lord—not just somebody who was impressive or somebody who might have had power over Abraham. This was Yahweh, and it is that same capital L small-caps LORD who goes on to speak to Abraham throughout this chapter. He speaks to Abraham in Genesis 18:3; He speaks to Abraham in Genesis 18:20, and in verse 26, and in verse 33. And in verse 22, Scripture says that “Abraham stood before the LORD.”

The Bible-scholar word for what’s happening here in this scene is theophany. That’s when God appears as a man. That’s what’s happening.

All of that backdrop is important as we get to our whisperer, Sarah. Here’s a little more background information. At this point in Scripture, the Lord had already spoken to Abraham many times. In Genesis 12, the Lord called him to leave his country. In Genesis 13, the Lord spoke again as Abraham parted ways with his nephew, Lot. In Genesis 15—that is an important chapter of Scripture to know—God made a covenant with Abraham. Really, our whole understanding of Scripture and grace and what Jesus did is built on these covenants in the Bible. Again, that Genesis 15 interaction between Abraham and the Lord is an important one, and He makes the covenant again in Genesis 17.

I tell you all of that so that you know that Abraham knew when he was in the Lord’s presence. And here in the heat of the day, on just a normal day, when he was just sitting by his tent trying to stay cool, the Lord appeared. And Abraham understood what was happening.

Alright, I want to pick it up again at Genesis 18:6. 

And Abraham went quickly into the tent to Sarah and said, "Quick! Three seahs of fine flour! Knead it, and make cakes."

Here’s a little heart check, ladies. Imagine that your husband rushes into the house, where you’re probably already busy doing things, and he tells you, “There are unexpected visitors here,” and he needs you to whip up something quick. By the way, Sarah lived in the era when there was no frozen cookie dough or Kraft macaroni and cheese, so this was not an easy assignment.

Now, I want you to know that Genesis 18 isn’t the first time we meet Sarah in Scripture, even though we’re very early on in the story of Scripture here. Actually, the first time we get a glimpse of Sarah is in chapter 12. I want you to try and think about these chapters in Genesis that we’re talking about through Sarah’s eyes. 

God appeared to Abraham, and He told Abraham to leave his family and his homeland, which meant leaving Sarah’s family and Sarah’s homeland. God’s command was, “Go to a land that I will show you.” Abraham didn’t know where they were going, and Sarah just had to follow her husband into a bold and strange new world.

As I’ve been thinking about this story, I’ve remembered and realized that sometimes it is really hard to believe and get on board with God’s plans for someone else. It’s crystal clear to them what God wants them to do, but you haven’t had an angelic messenger. You didn’t hear anything from the Holy Spirit, or there wasn’t something in Scripture that paralleled what they read. So, Sarah didn’t get to talk with the Lord like Abraham did, at least not until Genesis 18, as we’re going to see in a moment. All Sarah got to do was pack up the tent.

Here, again, in Genesis 18, something special is going on, and Sarah got relegated to kitchen duty by her husband. I’m not saying Sarah was bitter about it; I’m saying that I might have been.

Let’s keep reading in verses 7 and 8. 

And Abraham ran to the herd and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to a young man, who prepared it quickly. Then he took curds and milk and the calf that he had prepared, and he set it before them. And he stood by them under the tree while they ate.

Abraham was offering God his very best—this young calf and the curds from that day’s milking. That’s a sermon all unto itself, but where I want us to zero in is the whisper we’re paying attention to in this story. So, Abraham was eating with three angelic messengers, and Sarah had her ear pressed against the side of the tent. How do I know that? Let’s keep reading. Verse 9: 

They said to him, "Where is Sarah, your wife?" And he said, "She is in the tent.’"The LORD said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son." And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.

Hold your breath for just a minute. I have to read you Genesis 17:17. “Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘Shall a child be born to a man who is a hundred years old? Shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’”

I get two things from this verse. One, Sarah was ninety years old when these men visited! I want you to picture a ninety-year-old that you know. For me, Mimi comes to mind. That’s my husband’s grandmother, and we adore her. She just turned ninety-two. Now, I want to try to picture Mimi—pregnant. Picture your grandma pregnant, or that white-headed lady at church that is always so nice to you on Sunday mornings. Picture her waddling in, pregnant.

Now, don’t you convince yourself it was different back then. Ninety is old in every era of history, and Abraham thinks this idea of his ninety-year-old wife being pregnant was fall-on-your-face funny. So, observation number one is that Abraham and Sarah were both really old.

Observation number two for me is that this interaction we’re studying in Genesis 18 isn’t the first time God has given this couple the promise of a son. I just read it to you from the chapter before. In fact, Genesis 17 wasn’t the first time that this promise of a child had been given. Back in Genesis 15, when God gave Abraham that covenant that’s so important, He gave him this promise then, too. Genesis 15:5–6 says, “And He brought him outside and said, ‘Look toward heaven and number the stars, if you are able to number them.’ Then He said to him, ‘So shall your offspring be.’ And he [there, the “he” is Abraham] believed the LORD, and he [there the “he” is the Lord] counted it to him as righteousness.” So Abraham believed the Lord, and the Lord counted it to him as righteousness.

Here was the promise: God was going to give Abraham descendants, offspring, as many as the stars. And forgive me while I point out something pretty obvious—if you’re going to have descendants, as many as the stars, you have to have at least one descendant. You have to have somebody that carries on your family line before that line can be multiplied and multiplied and multiplied. You can’t have descendants if you can’t have children.

But here in Genesis 18, Sarah heard the promise firsthand, with her very own eardrums. This time it didn’t have to be told to her secondhand by her husband, who was old. Maybe Sarah just thought he was being senile when he said that the Lord had appeared to him and told him they were going to be parents in their old age. 

This is the moment when we hear the whisper of Sarah’s heart, and that’s what this series is about. It’s about these words that women spoke softly, sometimes just to one person, sometimes to nobody at all. Some of the whispers are really positive, and some of the whispers are negative. But I think they’re all brutally honest. 

What Sarah whispers inside her tent I believe was how she really felt about God’s promise. I want to pick it up at verse 11.

Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah.

Now, I can say this, because I assume that I am teaching to mostly women, so there’s no one to embarrass here. Sarah had gone through menopause. All women know what “the way of women” is. Sarah must have assumed that that change in her body signaled the final death of a dream that she had probably held onto for decades, because you can’t get pregnant after menopause. That’s just not how it works.

In her tent, presumably out of earshot of her hundred-year-old husband and his friends, the Bible tells us,

So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "After I am worn out and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?" (v. 12)

She looked at the promise of God, and she looked at the facts, and Sarah laughed. But I don’t believe her funny bone was tickled. In fact, I read this story, and I think the scab on a very painful wound had just been picked. She described herself as worn out. I’m sure that means that her body had aches and pains and wrinkles, as all ninety-year-old bodies do. But I also think she must have been worn out in other ways. She must have been worn out from hoping that, like most other women, she would get pregnant someday.

How many months in ninety years had she hoped to discover that she was going to have a baby? How many times in ninety years had she prayed for one? When she heard the promise again that God was going to give her a child in her old age, I think Sarah laughed the way we do when our only two options are to laugh or to cry.

Here’s a question for you and for me. What does our heart whisper to God when it seems He cannot, or will not, or for whatever He has not kept His promise to us? I wonder if you’ve ever looked at a promise of God—there are many throughout Scripture . . . If you’ve ever looked at a promise of God like Sarah did, and if you’re honest, if you could just whisper how you really feel, there’s something that you just don’t believe He’s going to come through, or don’t believe He’s going to come through for you.

This is true for me, and I have to think it’s true for you. There are times when it just seems like He’s a never present help in times of trouble. Sometimes our human reaction to God’s promises is less of a whisper, something that comes out of our mouths, and more of a whimper. We see our circumstances. We might even want to, but we just struggle to have the faith that God is going to come through again or for us, that He’s going to do what He promised He would do.

That phrase, “never present help in times of trouble,” is actually a twist on Psalm 46. Let me read you verses 1–3 of that psalm.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble. Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

I’m always reminding you that your Bible is a deep well, and I want you to drop your bucket a little deeper here. Look at what your Bible records before verse 1. This is one of eleven psalms written by the sons of Korah. That name Korah might ring a bell. If you’ve made it through the book of Numbers, you might remember Korah’s rebellion. 

Korah was swallowed up by the earth for leading that rebellion against Moses. But Numbers 26:9–11 tells us this: 

The sons of Eliab: Nemuel, Dathan, and Abiram. These are the Dathan and Abiram chosen from the congregation who contended against Moses and Aaron in the company of Korah [there it is; Korah led the rebellion], when they contended against the Lord. 

The Lord took offense at this. A rebellion against the man He chose was a rebellion against Him. So what did he do? Verse 10: “And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, together with Korah, when that company died, when the fire devoured 250 men, and they became a warning.” 

But listen to verse 11. Think about what we just read in the Psalms. “But the sons of Korah did not die.”

These were his sons—maybe not his direct sons, but the descendants of Korah—who wrote that even when the earth gives way, we need not fear. They meant it literally. They had seen, or certainly heard stories, of the earth giving way and swallowing up men. This is a psalm penned out of heartache and confusion and trauma and grief.

What this psalm gives us is the foundation that when the ground beneath us shifts—for most of us it’s not going to be literal, but emotionally, spiritually, physically—when we feel like we are not on steady ground, when everything we know is crumbling, when the noise is deafening like the roaring sea. We don’t have to fear, because God is our refuge, He is our strength. He’s a very present help in trouble.

Now, that’s the right bottom line. It’s true, because all Scripture is God-breathed, it’s all useful for our instruction. It’s all true. The bottom line is God is a very present help in times of trouble. But that doesn’t mean that our human, sin-filled hearts don’t sometimes struggle to believe it’s true. God didn’t cast out Korah’s sons because of their dad’s sin, and He doesn’t zap us with lightning when we whimper what He already knows, which is that sometimes our faith is weak. He did not renege on His promise to Sarah because she laughed inside her tent. But He did hear her.

Look at verse 13. 

The Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child now that I am old?’”

Ask yourself this question as you think about that verse: Was God’s goal in saying that to humiliate Sarah? We have to filter everything we read in the pages of our Bible through what we know about God’s character. We let Scripture interpret Scripture. Is there anywhere in Scripture where we see a God who delights in humiliating His children? No, thankfully. 

So, God’s goal in pointing out that Sarah had laughed on the other side of the tent wall was not to humiliate her. Instead, He responded to her whisper, that thing she just said in reaction, not to anybody in particular, but what rose up in her heart. He responded with assurance.

Verse 14 says,

Is anything too hard for the Lord? 

Remember, this is the Lord talking! 

"At the appointed time, I will return to you about this time next year, and Sarah will have a son." But Sarah denied it, saying, "I did not laugh," for she was afraid. He said, "No, but you did laugh." (vv. 14–15)

I don’t know if that’s how God really said it, but that’s the tone that I think of when I read this part of Sarah’s story.

Now I want you to take everything you’ve heard about Sarah, lots of information and one whispered thought out of her mouth, and I want you to layer your own whisper prayers over this story. Think of that as those things you feel in your heart about God, especially those things you feel about His promises. They may be promises like that He is an ever present help in times of trouble; or that He’ll never leave you or forsake you (we’re going to talk about that more in a different episode); or that He’s close to the brokenhearted; or even that He will come back for us.

What are those things you really feel about His promises but you just can’t bring yourself to say them? At least not in anything more than a whisper? When you think about those things, I want you to see from Sarah’s story that God knows, God hears, God cares.

Here’s the best news: God’s faithfulness is not dependent on you saying the right words in the right way.

Let’s jump ahead to Genesis 21. 

The LORD visited Sarah as He had said, and the LORD did to Sarah as He had promised. (v. 1) 

That’s so good, the last part of that verse! “The Lord did to Sarah as He had promised,” despite what she whispered in her heart of hearts.

And Sarah conceived and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the time of which God had spoken to him. Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him, whom Sarah bore him, Isaac. And Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old, as God had commanded him. Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him. And Sarah said, "God has made laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh over me.’ And she said, "Who would have said to Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age.’"(vv. 2–7)

Well, who said that to Abraham? It was the Lord. I believe, as a woman in her nineties—she was ninety when Isaac was conceived; she may have celebrated a birthday when she had white hair and a baby bump—but regardless of whether she was ninety or ninety-one, I believe that when she gave birth to the child she longed for, as an old woman, I think Sarah laughed a totally different kind of laugh, I think she whispered a different kind of whisper: Thank You. 

I do that sometimes. Sometimes when I’m at church and my heart is stirred by worship, I’ll say out loud, but it’s a whisper, “Thank You, Jesus,” because that’s what boils up in me. Or sometimes when you just have one of those perfect days. I had one of these the other day. My sons were playing baseball in the field behind our house, and the peach trees had pink blooms everywhere, and I just whispered, “Thank You.” That’s another kind of response that we can have to God and His promises. We don’t have to blast it, but we can. There’s just some intimacy in whispering to Him, “Thank You.”

Now, I don’t want you to let me wrap this story up in a tidy bow for you. In fact, I want you to keep reading Genesis, because there’s the whole matter of Abraham committing to sacrifice this son of promise. What did Sarah whisper then? There’s all manner of family turmoil and other challenges that just come with being part of humanity.

But what I hope is that in that tent Sarah learned that it’s okay to pray honest prayers, even if all you can do is whisper them. 

There are some really beautiful honest prayers in Scripture. If you’re listening to this podcast on a day where, like Sarah, you look at the promises of God and you look at your circumstances and if you’re honest you can’t figure out how the two are ever going to both be true; my encouragement to you would be to latch onto one of those honest prayers today. Let them give you some language for what to do when you struggle to believe that God is who He claims to be and that He will do what He promises to do. 

There’s Asaph’s prayer of despair in Psalm 77, where he said, “I’m so troubled I cannot speak.” His vocal chords were constricted by his grief or his fear or his worry. So this had to be a whisper prayer.

Then there’s the father of the demon-possessed boy in Mark 9. He’s the one who prayed that beautiful prayer: “I believe; help my unbelief.” Now, the Bible doesn’t tell us that he whispered that, but all parents know the kind of prayers that you can’t get past the lump in your throat.

Then there’s Jesus’ prayer in Matthew 26. Jesus prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” Now, this is conjecture, but I don’t see that being a prayer Jesus shouted from the rooftop. I think it was intimate. I think it was quiet. It was certainly honest.

God didn’t take away the promise of Sarah’s miracle boy because she whispered her weak faith, and He’s not going to yank His promises away from you because you dare to say what’s really on your heart to Him. When you read Sarah’s story here, what I want you to know is that you can bring your laughter, your tears, your frustrations, your fears, bring them all to Jesus. Then watch. Watch Jesus be who He has promised He will be: an ever present help in times of trouble.

Judy: What have you been whispering to your own heart? Erin’s been showing us the power of the whispers we all tell ourselves.

Before we get to Erin Unscripted, I want to remind you, one way to whisper the truth to your own heart is to dig into God’s Word. Erin wants to help you do that, so she wrote a Bible study called Seven Feasts. When you go through this study, you’ll learn more about seven Old Testament feasts and how they were fulfilled by Jesus. You’ll fall in love with Him all over again as you get this fresh perspective from the Old Testament.

To get a copy of Seven Feasts, visit ReviveOurHearts.com/TheDeepWell.

Now it’s time for Erin Unscripted.

Erin Unscripted

Erin: In this season my cohosts are two women you are going to grow to love—they’re easy to love—Judy Dunagan and Staci Rudolph. When I knew I was developing this series, ladies, I knew I wanted you on it, because the three of us represent three different seasons of life. I won’t say our ages, but we are in different seasons.

I wanted us to explore how this idea of what we whisper and the power of our soft words, how it applies when you’re a mom with a houseful of kids, like I am; when you are empty nester, like you are, Judy; or Staci, like you, when you’re single and you don’t have a husband and kids at home. Still, I think the things we see in Scripture—I know the things we see in Scripture—are going to apply to all of us. I wanted to explore that a little bit together. Plus, I just like hanging out with you!

Judy: Thanks, Erin.

One thing I was wondering as I was listening to your teaching—I loved what you said, that sometimes it feels like He’s a never present help in times of trouble. Can you share a time in your own life when it seemed like God was a never present help during a troubling time in your life?

Erin: Judy, you would know my answer even before I said it, because this is something that you and I share. Your sweet mama suffered with dementia, and my sweet mama suffers with dementia now. Your mom is now in glory, and my mom is still walking that really difficult path. I’ve called you at times and expressed a version of, “It’s hard! I don’t feel like the Lord is moving! Why isn’t He healing her? Why is she struggling so much? Why can’t we get the resources we need?” 

Even though I absolutely know that He is with us, this has been a long valley, a long journey, where there have been many moments where I felt like He was silent or somehow He wasn’t attentive to us.

You’ve been so good to just encourage me that He is. I’ll turn the tables on you. Looking back at your own journey with your mom’s dementia, did you have those moments too? Do you see them differently now?

Judy: Oh yes, I did. My mom languished with Alzheimer’s for fourteen years, and my father cared for her in their home most of that time. As you know, it’s horrifying to watch. I really wrestled with the Lord. I’m so grateful we can go to Him with those hard questions, those lamenting prayers. 

Erin, it was really at my mom’s funeral when my daughter read her eulogy that I realized the impact my mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s had on my teenage daughter at the time. She saw my mom’s faith being so deep and her love of Jesus. Even when she didn’t recognize us and could barely talk, my mom could still sing a hymn and still say, “Praise the Lord,” if you spoke something over her about Jesus. My daughters don’t really have any memory of my mom without Alzheimer’s. Yet they would tell you that she was probably one of the most godly women they ever knew. That came from the testimony and the groaning, really, of Alzheimer’s.

Erin: So precious!

Staci: Yes. Judy, I love what you said about kind of pulling out what Erin had said about God seeming like a never present help. When she said that, I was instantly like, “Oh, I see what she’s playing off of there!” Sometimes it does feel like that. Even in my own life, I’ve kind of struggled a lot with anxiety. 

Lately, I’ve been finding myself praying harder and asking God, “Why? How long is this going to go on?” “What does that look like?” ”When are You going to show up for me?” “When are You going to answer those prayers and deliver me from this thing that I’ve been praying for for so long?” So, it’s been a battle of trying to remember that He is faithful, He is ever present, and that lie about Him being a never present help is just that, it’s a lie.

Erin: So true. I was praying something similar just this week. There’s a friendship in my life where there’s a fracture. I’ve been praying for reconciliation. I know that God would be so greatly glorified by these two Christian women repairing their relationship, but it just isn’t happening. I think I had another one of those “never present help” feelings, like, “God, I’ve prayed about this a lot. I don’t understand why this couldn’t be Your will for there to be reconciliation in this relationship. Where are You?”

I think, Staci, it was another version of the anxiety that you were describing so beautifully. I think every woman can probably relate.

Judy: Yes, I think it took me many years in my walk with Christ to understand He wants us to come with our deep sorrows and our lamenting prayers. I was in a season in my life when one thing after another was hitting our family. I had a friend speak over me, “God’s Word tells us that Jesus was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, and He wept at a friend’s grave as He walked this groaning earth, and He wept over the city of Jerusalem.” That gave me freedom to be able to run to Him with my heart’s cry. You see that in the Psalms, where David over and over . . . There’s a psalm where he goes, “How long, Lord? How long?” Erin, you touched on a lot of psalms in this teaching, and I so appreciated that. 

Also, you talked about Sarah’s two different laughs. I hadn’t even ever noticed that before. The first one at first seemed like it was disrespectful of the Lord, but I see it as a laugh of lament. She said, “After I am worn out and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?” I mean, she was lamenting, not believing.

Then she had the laugh of praise later, when it says that Abraham was a hundred years old when his son Isaac was born to him, and Sarah said, “God has made laughter for me. Everyone who hears will laugh over me.” What a beautiful picture of going from lamenting to laughing in praise! I think we can all learn from that, but also to know He’s a safe God for us to run to Him and be honest with Him. Like what you said, Staci, of your longing, “O how long, Lord?”

Staci: That really resonated with me, too.

Erin: Yes, I think one laugh she probably did with gritted teeth, and the second laugh was probably a belly laugh. Even her demeanor you can picture being different both times she’s laughing.

You can do the same with crying. There’s some crying that is joyful crying, and there’s some crying that is so deep and sorrowful. But God heard it all, God saw it all. I don’t think we can take from Scripture that He turned away from Sarah because she had that first laugh that was a sorrow-filled laugh. In fact, I know we can’t. That’s not what we see.

Staci: Right. It’s so beautiful that God even sees those things as crying out to Him. What would have been a laugh and a bit of disrespect (someone else could see that as that). But God is like, “Wow, she’s broken, and I see what’s underneath that laugh. It’s a beautiful thing.”

I think something else that really resonated with me as you were talking is I examined my own whisper. What I found was that, like you said, I’m loud. I’m like, “Hey, I want this thing, but I’m trusting the Lord. If it’s His will, then it’ll happen. I’m all good with that.” Then my quiet whisper is more like, “But I don’t think it’s going to be His will.” That kind of woke me up to the fact that so many times I’m saying that I trust the Lord. I’m saying that I believe He’s faithful. But then I’m kind of believing the lie that He doesn’t want good things for me, or that what I want will not be in His will.

Erin: Yes. I often know He can, but I doubt He will.

Staci: That’s a good way to put it.

Erin: Like you, Staci, I have a big personality. So the loud what comes out of my mouth is, “He is able,” but the whisper in my heart is really, “But I’m not sure He’s going to.” Both are true, and I think He wants to hear both ends of that spectrum.

Staci: You lead a lot of women. You teach your Bible studies and things like that. So I just had a question. From one baby leader to another, sometimes my whispers make me ashamed to lead, if that makes any sense. Here I am telling others of the faithfulness of God, of how He delivers, how He shows up, and then I’m kind of whispering in fear to Him that I don’t even think He’s going to do the things that I’m telling other people that He will. How do you navigate that? Not that you don’t believe what you’re preaching, because you do, but there are just moments when you kind of have those weaknesses?

Erin: Well, Judy, step up to the mic, because I want you to answer that after me. You have more leadership experience than I do. But actually, that little turn of phrase “never present help in times of trouble” was a source of deep shame for me for many years. I just had that thought in a moment, I whispered it to the Lord, and afterwards I was like, “I cannot believe that was in me! I cannot believe that in my heart of hearts I could ever think that God is a never present help, because He has been an ever present help!” I mean, we all could spend many, many episodes of this podcast telling all the times that God did show up, and we knew it was Him. He was faithful; and yet, still I had this “ye of little faith” version of Erin in there.

I didn’t tell anybody about it for years. Then one time I told Jason about it through tears. I said, “Sometimes I feel like He’s a never present help!” because I was so ashamed about it. That’s part of what this podcast allows me to do, is to really drag everything up to the microphone, into the light, and say, “This is who I really am, and both are true.” There are times when I do worry that He’s not going to come through for me. Or I do worry He’s forgotten about me. Or I do worry He’s angry at me. I’ve talked about that a lot before on The Deep Well. “He’s not going to be faithful this time.”

But I am also this woman who is absolutely committed to Him and believes His Word. Every woman I’m ever going to lead, she’s going to be those two women, too. I mean, she’s going to be a woman who has probably given her life to Jesus, or she wouldn’t be under discipleship. So there’s been a pledge made. “Yes, I’m going to love You, I’m going to serve You.” She’s probably a woman who believes in the authority of Scripture, so she’s in my living room with her Bible open. But she’s also that woman who sometimes—maybe often—thinks He won’t come through. So, it does make me feel shame sometimes, because I want to walk what I talk, and I talk a lot about how good He is. But I’m both. I’m a woman of flesh for the moment, unfortunately, so I can only hope that women are encouraged.

Judy, I would toss that to you. When you lead women (which you do in so many different contexts), do you ever feel shame about some of your own whispers?

Judy: Oh yes. I’ve been there, and I’ll probably be there again. I think one thing I finally learned in a leadership role that I had at our church in Colorado Springs . . . I headed up women’s ministries. When I first started, I think I thought I had to act like I had it all together and had all the answers. It was almost like a Messiah complex.

That was the season (not because of the ministry but because of things going on in our family and just health issues with one of our daughters) where I was just undone. I realized, “I can’t make it. If I’m going to speak or lead the Bible study or share with my leadership team, I have to be vulnerable.” I was, and that brought down a wall for all of them, especially the core leadership team, where we could just pour out our hearts’ cry and our sorrows and our questions.

I think the women we were serving really gleaned from that and learned from that. They didn’t think we all had it together, which is a good thing. We all need our Savior.

The enemy, too, is all about shame. He wants to shame us if we’re in a leadership role, but we have to keep turning our hearts back to Him and running to Him with our questions and our sorrows. He’s so faithful in that, and you’ve talked a lot about that, which I love. 

I think you said something along the lines of, “Bring your laughter, tears, fears, and frustrations to Jesus, and watch Jesus be who He promises to be, an ever present help in times of trouble.” I had to write that down because it’s so profound. We need to all remember that we can bring it all to Him, and He is our ever present help in trouble—even if we don’t feel like it, He always is.

Erin: He is. Yes, I would love to think that this podcast is something that women share in groups. I hope that there are text threads of women walking through “Whispers” together, or maybe you use it for your small group or something. I would just say, one thing. You could look at each other and ask each other after this episode, “What are your whispers? What are those things in the bottom of your heart about the Lord that you can hardly even get past your lips?” Because you know they’re not quite right or you know they are laced with shame or whatever, and say those to each other. Just like we’ve done here in this little circle, there’s a lot of power in speaking them out loud, letting other women say, “You know the truth! You know He is an ever present help in times of trouble!” It’s such a powerful thing God’s given us in each other, when we do that.

Judy: Another thing I love that you talked about was “thank You Jesus” whispers. Rather than just the whispers that are lamenting, our heart’s cry, the “thank You Jesus” whispers that can just be one sentence. Erin and Staci, I wondered, what has been a “thank You Jesus” whisper you’ve had, either now or in your past, that you can share?

Staci: I think a “thank You Jesus” whisper, for sure, has been God slowly revealing His calling for me. That was something I struggled with for a long time. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. Was I supposed to go to college? Was I supposed to work here? It was like I was in constant confusion about that.

Now, when I look and I see how God is moving and I see the opportunities that He’s bringing to me, it’s so easy for me to say, “Thank You,” because I remember that confusion and how I felt like I had no path or I didn’t know where I was going. I would say that is probably my biggest “thank You Jesus” prayer that I do every so often. Even after doing something like this, I’m like, “Thank You, Jesus!”

Judy: I love that.

Erin: You had to go first because I had a lump in my throat when Judy asked that. Because really, these two examples came to mind. They are probably my most intimate moments with the Lord.

I have four sons. I think every time one of those children was delivered healthy to me and placed on my chest, as children are when they’re born, I know there was a, “Thank You, Jesus.” I was so grateful for those babies!

Then every once in a while in church as everybody’s singing . . . I’m a pretty animated worshiper, so often I’ll have both hands up; I’m swaying; I am in a pretty loud church. Even in that big, bold posture, I will just occasionally stand very, very still and say, “Thank You, Jesus.” It is so intimate; it’s so quiet. I don’t even want my neighbor in the pew next to me to hear it, necessarily, but it’s genuine gratitude. Any time I can worship with the Body and experience His presence I’m grateful. Sometimes I’m overwhelmed with it, and I get quieter, not louder, in those overwhelmed moments.

Staci: One thing I noticed, too, just in Sarah’s story . . . I think as humans we get so focused on the end result and on the milestone that we’re trying to reach, and God is so focused and concerned with who we’re becoming in the process. That was really interesting to me. She could have easily had a son at forty or thirty or fifty, but ninety years?

Erin: Or eighty-nine!

Staci: Exactly! But waiting until that ninety-year mark, and all that she learned about God along the way, all that she learned about herself and things she had to work through and who she was becoming as she waited on a promise that He could have easily given years ago . . . That is so mind-blowing to me, that God is so concerned about who we’re becoming in the process, and not so much what we’re trying to get to.

Judy: So true! I think for me, my “thank You Jesus” whisper, one that really struck my heart, was . . . I mentioned that season where it was just one thing after another, to where I felt like I was going to go under. There were some anxiety issues for me regarding health issues for family and loved ones. But on the other side of it (I’m the oldest of the three of us, so I’m far on the other side of some things), I was able to look back and see His kindness even in all of that. 

Some of that came out with the daughter who was so ill going so much deeper with Jesus, and she wouldn’t have that without that trial with her health. Even my walk with the Lord, that lament turned to praise because I realized how desperate I was for Him. I saw His kindness throughout, His lovingkindness, which I don’t think we talk a lot about. We think of Him as holy and mighty and just, and yes, compassionate. But He’s just kind sometimes, and it makes me tear up to think of His kindness throughout my life in different ways.

Staci: Are there longings in your heart you’re afraid to say out loud? On our next episode, Erin will explore the whispers of Leah, a wife who felt unloved. All six episodes in this series are ready for you, so you can listen anytime.

The Deep Well with Erin Davis is a production of Revive Our Hearts, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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