Chapter-a-Day Genesis 18

So she laughed silently to herself and said, “How could a worn-out woman like me enjoy such pleasure, especially when my master—my husband—is also so old?” Genesis 18:12 (NLT)

In our culture we talk of a woman’s “biological clock” in reference to the natural desire our Creator designed within women to conceive and bear children. Of course, there are exceptions as with almost any physiological generality, but the biological clock is very real. Since I’m starting with a generality, let me continue with another as I submit that most guys remain largely ignorant of the works of the female biological clock in same way they’d glance at the hands of a watch to check the time but have no desire to pry the back off the watch and understand what all those cogs, wheels and little spinning things do. Which means most of the males completely miss a layer of understanding in the story of Sarah.

I’ve come to learn along the journey that a woman’s biological clock is like those vintage Timex commercials with John Cameron Swayze. It keeps on ticking and ticking and ticking. If you see a gaggle of females gathered around a newborn baby the crescendo of combined biological clocks working in overdrive makes the ticking nearly audible to the human ear. Some women still feel the ticking after they’ve had their tubes tied, after they have a  hysterectomy, and after they can physically have children.

How interesting that Sarah, childless into her nineties, hears the suggestion that she will get pregnant and bear a son and considers that she would “enjoy such pleasure.” The idea that you would consider the sheer physical trauma of pregnancy a “pleasure” when you’re ninety years old is almost insane. Such is the power of the biological clock. When you add to it the fact that we as humans tend to desire most greatly the very thing we do not or cannot have, it makes Sarah’s story even more fascinating and compelling.