*THE SECOND KNOCK*
She lay among the soiled and wrinkled linen, the room in total disarray, her garments tattered and torn, her future changed forever. Her feminity had been crushed like a rosebud. Tears ran down her face like rain on a windowpane. She was weeping, not just because of her torn flesh, but because of her shattered trust. She had tried to help a man in need, and instead of receiving his gratitude, she had been brutally abused and assaulted.
She had entered into the relationship as his sister, but she had tried to be his friend. She was Tamar. Her brother Amnon was ill. He needed her, he said. You know how it is when a man needs you. Sometimes your maternal instincts take over, and reason goes out the window. Besides, Tamar thought she could cure her brother by caring for him. Little did she know that what ailed him could not be cured by any woman’s gentle nurture.
While she stirred the soup and prepared to minister to him, he plotted her demise. Somewhere in the process of trying to help him, the tenor of the relationship changed. The tempo escalated, and before she knew what had happened, Amnon had raped her and left her bleeding and humiliated.
Be watchful, my sister. Be careful, because you may not realize the moment a relationship changes. It can happen in the blink of an eye, and you will wonder why you didn’t see it coming.
Tamar wailed, but no one answered. She cried, but it seemed no one cared. She needed compassion and sympathy, but all she found was loneliness and despair. Bad enough that the one she had trusted had betrayed her. Worse still, that he had rejected her as well. “What you did at the end is worse than what you did in the beginning,” she told him (see 2 Samuel 13: 16). Who would have ever thought that something so innocent could have brought such evil results?
Just when it seemed she could not bear the shame and disgrace a moment longer, another man entered. It was Absalom. He lifted her from her crumpled state, wiped her hair from her face, kiss
ed the tears from her eyes, and brought her into his house where she could recover.
*Be wise, my sister. You may have the best of intentions, but I must tell you that good intentions may not prevent a broken heart. Still, every man is not like Amnon. And just because you were violated once doesn’t mean you can’t learn from your experience. It doesn’t mean you can never be loved.*
*So take courage. If no man comes to assist you, pick yourself up and walk on. Walk right past the agony of the first man and listen for the knock of the second. It will come. The knock may not be delivered by a human hand but it will come. It will be the knock of Jesus – your Bridegroom, coming for you, His beloved.