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Leah: The Highest Fulfillment


My first husband abandoned me and our daughter for another woman—his high school love. Never mind the hurt of separation, but it was the pain of rejection and being second best that hurt most. That crushed me. He must really love her, I surmised. She must be more beautiful! And all the insecurities tortured me for a while. When he returned, I wanted to prove that I was worth more than that woman. But it didn’t work out.


Leah was unwanted, unloved, and unattractive. She was married to Jacob through the treacherous acts of her father, Laban. Leah’s concept of fulfillment was to be accepted and loved by her husband because she knew that Jacob loved and favored her sister, Rachel, who was more beautiful than her.

The Lord saw that Leah was unloved, so He opened her womb and she bore a son. Leah’s response was that now her husband would love her. But not yet! Her desire for her husband intensified so that even after two more sons, her yearning expression was that Jacob would be attached to her. Still, not yet! It wasn’t only after the fourth son that she expressed her praises to the Lord.

God had a watchful eye over her sorrows and blessed her, but Leah’s insecurities became complicated, mixed with jealousy and competitiveness with her sister. Not seeing the miracle of grace, her fulfillment was now in motherhood and in doing anything to have her husband. Leah gave her maidservant to Jacob to bear her two children and hired him over mandrakes. After her sixth son, the desire for her husband to dwell with her didn’t diminish; nothing would fulfill her until it happens.

Although God wanted to show Leah His love by the sweet rewards of children, she was still looking for Jacob’s love instead of her Maker’s love.


It’s a sad, common story. As the song goes, “’I can’t make you love me if you don’t; you can’t make your heart feel something it won’t.” I imagine God must be feeling that way, too, every time His children make Him second best. The truth is, we can try all we can, but people can’t love us as much as God does. We can only find the highest fulfillment of our heart’s greatest need to be loved and accepted in Christ. Be a woman at rest His love.