Merab: What Could Have Been

1. Samuel 18:17-19

Strange to think now
I could once have been yours,
that it could have been me
gracing your side.
What might life have been
if my father kept his promise?
What might life have been
if you had married me?

Strange to think now
that I ever wanted you,
that there was a time
when I'd see you and swoon,
when my heart would beat faster
each time you looked my way.
Such a silly girl,
young and in love,
protesting when they gave me
to another man.

Strange to think now
what I might have endured -
could I have endured it
the way she did?
Could I have stood by you
against my own father,
abandoning my family?
Could I have lied to protect you
from the people I loved?
Could I have endured
years of separation,
fearing for your life?
Could I have endured
being reunited with you,
when you no longer loved me
but had married many more?
Could I have endured
a life torn in two?

Strange to think now
I could once have been yours.
Strange to think now
that I ever wanted you.
Could I have endured it
the way she did?
I was such a silly girl,
young and in love.
But today I look back
and thank the wiser hand of God
for not granting me my wishes
and not letting dreams come true.

___________________________________________________

[2. March 2017]

Merab was the elder daughter of Saul. Saul originally promised her to David, not her sister Michal - but then gave her away to be married to someone else (probably to spite David). Merab doesn't really get a voice in any of it; we don't see how she felt, whether she actually "liked" David the way I portrayed it here (though he was so popular, especially with the ladies, that I think it's quite possible). As often happened to women (especially princesses) in those times, others decided her fate for her and she had no say.

The theme I decided to pick up on here was how sometimes, it's better not to get what we wish for - that sometimes, we only see later how things would have unfolded, and have to admit that not getting what we wanted was better. We may sometimes be disappointed by God not answering prayers or not letting things happen the way we'd like them to - but "the wiser hand of God" knows what and how much we can take. I keep marvelling at how much Michal, Merab's sister (who became David's first wife), had to go through (and I'd like to write many more poems about her!) - and that she didn't break under all that. She had to take sides between her father and her husband - a dreadfully painful thing! So when Merab says in this poem, "Could I have endured it / the way she did?" she is talking about Michal. Not everyone can bear things the same way. God knows which trials to give us, and which to spare us from.

But often we need the wisdom of hindsight to see that it was better not to get what we wanted.
For me this means: I need to trust that God knows what He's doing when He doesn't make all my dreams and ideas and plans come true.

Picture by Ernest J. Rowley, The veiled lady (1903).