Rachel: The Woman Who Got What She Wanted... And Still Wanted More

What if getting what you wanted didn't solve what was hurting inside?

In this episode of Between The Verses — Real Talk. Real Faith with Kelli LaVerne, we take a closer look at Rachel, the woman Jacob loved, pursued, and waited years to marry.

From the outside, Rachel appears to have everything many people dream of—love, beauty, and being chosen. She was the one Jacob wanted from the beginning. The one he worked years to marry. The one many would assume had the fairytale ending.

But Rachel's story reveals a deeper truth.

Sometimes we finally get what we've been hoping for... and discover it isn't enough to heal the ache we carry inside.

As Rachel watches her sister Leah bear children while she struggles with infertility, she finds herself wrestling with comparison, disappointment, longing, and the painful belief that something important is still missing. Her story reminds us that being deeply loved doesn't automatically create peace, and external blessings don't always bring internal contentment.

In this episode, we talk about:
• getting what you wanted and realizing it didn't answer everything
• being chosen and still feeling incomplete
• the trap of comparison
• carrying disappointment quietly
• finding peace beyond external blessings
• why contentment is an inside job

Because sometimes the thing we're chasing isn't what we're really missing.

Welcome to Eve's Drop — Listening in on the women between the verses.

Real talk.
Real faith.
From Sunday to Monday.

Between The Verses — Real Talk. Real Faith with Kelli LaVerne

Between The Verses — Real Talk. Real Faith with Kelli LaVerne

Current Series:
Eve’s Drop — Listening in on the women between the verses.

Real talk.
Real faith.
From Sunday to Monday. 💭

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:08

Come on the story. Between the verses. Real real face. I feel the great. Between the verses. Kelly Laverne.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Welcome to Between the Verses, Real Talk, Real Faith with Kelly Laverne. This is Eavesdrop, where we listen a little closer to the women between the Verses. And before we get into it today, I've got a special announcement. One of my favorite people is joining me for an episode. It's coming up soon. I'm so excited. She has a dynamic personality, and I believe she's just going to bring some more insight as we dig into these ladies between the verses. So I'm excited. I hope you'll tune in and be excited, but you got to stay connected so that you don't miss it. And you know what else? I realized something. I've been so busy inviting you into these stories, I've never actually invited you to stay. So officially, welcome everyone. Officially, I'm inviting you to subscribe, to share, and to come back. Because these women, they still have something to say. And there are quite some people that need to hear it. But girlfriends and guys, just in case they're listening in, let's get into it today. Because today we need to talk about Rachel. Now her name came up in our last episode. We were talking about Leah. If you haven't listened to it, go back, check it out. Matter of fact, all of them, like catch up. Because we've been talking about some good things, some things that we've never really tapped into because they were hidden between the verses. But I want to clarify something before we move on. Because last episode I mentioned that Jacob um worked another seven years after actually marrying Rachel. So I thought it was 21 years total, but it's 20 years. So he worked seven years to get Rachel, ended up marrying Leah. Then he worked another seven years to get Rachel, and he did get Rachel. But then he worked another six years to get livestock. So it was a total of 20 years that he worked. And he said the days flew by because of love. But anyway, getting back to Rachel. Now this one feels a little different because when people talk about Rachel, they usually talk about her like she won, like she got the prize, like she got the fairy tale, like she was the one that got picked, like she got the version everybody wants. Because Rachel isn't overlooked. She isn't standing in the background. She isn't waiting to be chosen. She's chosen immediately. And honestly, that's a part of us that assumes that should solve everything. So we're gonna look at that. Now, if you remember, Eve, Eve was about influence. Sarah, we talked about waiting. Leah, we talked about being overlooked. But Rachel, Rachel is something people don't talk about enough, or someone people don't talk about enough. Rachel is being deeply loved and still realizing love doesn't automatically answer every ache. Okay? I'm a witness to that. I don't know about you, but yeah. Love does not answer all. Okay? And Rachel is realizing that. And you know what? Her story is found in Genesis chapter 29, starts at verse 9 and goes through to chapter 35, um, verse 19. And I encourage you, I know, I know, we've heard it, we've had it told to us, we've had it preached to us. Some of us have preached it ourselves, but go back and check it out after hearing this and see if you can pick out what we're digging into between the verses today. So, as Rachel's story goes, Jacob arrives. Now, we talked about this last time. Jacob um he arrives and he sees her, and immediately something shifts. Now, scripture doesn't slowly build this, it's immediate he notices her, he's drawn to her, and eventually he agrees to work seven years just to marry her. Seven years. Now we talked a little bit about this. We've been talking about Leah, but seven years unpaid, he's working to be able to marry Rachel. So he made an arrangement with her dad, and he's doing this seven years, and he's doing this because of how much he loved her. Now, y'all talking about love at first sight. Woo! This had to be some serious love because that you know, immediately he was caught up. He loved her, he had to have her, and he was willing to work, and he did work just to accomplish his goal. So this is not, you know, something casual. This is not just something convenient. This is intentional love. Intentional love. Somebody's willing to work seven years before they even can be with you. Intentional love. And if we're honest, that's the kind of love that people dream about being chosen, being pursued, being wanted. Come on, I don't know about you, but that's something that as a woman I would want. Right? And get this. Rachel had that. And if we stop the story right here, you probably think, well, she got the happy ending. But stories rarely end where we think they should. Okay. Because now eventually, Jacob marries Rachel. It's now 14 years that he's worked because there was a delay. So after the delay, after the first seven he put in, after the disappointment, after that whole situation with Leah, it's now 14 years later when he finally gets Rachel. Now, things can, a lot of things can change in in 14 years. I mean, even in seven years, but yet he still loved her and wanted her. So you would think now everything should be okay. He did the 14, you know, came for one wife, ended up with two. But life doesn't always work like that. Because sometimes you finally get the thing you wanted, and then realize there are still places in your heart that feel unfinished, unfulfilled. And Rachel's unfinished place was becoming impossible to ignore. Because while she was deeply loved, Jacob deeply loved her, Leah starts having children. And slowly the comparison begins. Now, it's funny because it starts out with Leah being compared to Rachel. You know, we talked about how the Bible said, you know, Rachel was, you know, hard on the eyes. Let's just put it like that. Leah. Leah was hard on the eyes, and that Rachel was beautiful. And Rachel was the one that was wanted from day one. And so we talked about how we can, we could imagine them growing up as sisters. You know, Leah always having to be in the shadow of the, you know, the beautiful sister and the younger sister at that. So now the script is flippant because Rachel is now being compared to Leah. Because Rachel's having children. And Leah, I'm sorry, Leah's having children, and Rachel is not. So the comparisons begin. And this is where I think people can misunderstand Rachel. Because comparison doesn't always come from jealousy. Sometimes comparison can come from pain. You know, it's out of hurt that we might start looking and comparing or feeling like we're being compared to somebody. It can come from pain. And I think in this case, that may have been what happened because suddenly the thing Rachel had doesn't feel like enough. She has Jacob, but Leah has children. She has affection, but Leah has fruit. And now, get this. Now both women are in the same house looking at each other, thinking, You have what I wish I had. Isn't that something? They're both looking at each other saying, I want, I wish I had what you had, and vice versa. Now, think about it, that's hard because comparison always convinces us that peace is living somewhere else. When we start comparing, we see the other person's situation with you know rose-colored glasses, as they used to say. We think they got it all going on. Let me just keep going. I need y'all to lean in. Okay. So eventually, everything that Rachel has been carrying comes out. She can't take it anymore. And she says, God, give me children, or else I die. That's not soft. That's not polished. That's not measured. That's pain talking. I can just imagine her crying out and screaming it. That's years of pain talking. That's disappointment talking. Because underneath those words, I don't know, she she may not be saying, or I think she's saying, tell me I'm enough. Tell me I matter too. Tell me I'm not missing something. And you know what? When we look at it that way, that moment feels human. She's looking at her sister with all these children, and she can't have any. Now, the fact that we know she can't have any must be that must mean she was trying. So this is a a human moment. She's crying out in pain. In pain. It feels so human right here. And a lot of times we just skip over that verse or we skip over these stories. But sometimes we break because we've been carrying disappointment quietly for too long. It's not because we're weak. It doesn't mean that we're weak. We've just been carrying something for too long. So let's bring this a little closer. Because this just isn't Rachel. This is getting the relationship and still feeling lonely. You ever been there before? Getting that promotion and still wondering if you matter. Getting the recognition and realizing it didn't heal what you thought it would. And listen, this isn't about being, you know, ungrateful. This is about understanding something important. Lean in. Come on, girlfriends, cousins, and all those people in between. I need you to lean in on this. External blessings don't automatically create internal peace. Have you ever witnessed that? I have, you know, you just think, oh, if I just had this, if I just had this, you know, car. And it's not that you're being, how can I put it? You're not being covetous, you know, like you're not coveting your neighbor. It's not something that you're like obsessed with, but it's just something that you've wanted. And you just feel like, if I could just finally get this car, and then you get it, and it's still not hitting the way you thought. Or, you know, a relationship. Oh wow, if I just had a God would send me a man like that, oh, my life would just be wonderful. And you get the man, and guess what? It may not be anything wrong with the man. The marriage may even be going picture perfect, but it's still something there. It's still something there. External blessings don't automatically create internal peace. We see this with Rachel. She got the man, he loved her from day one. Can you imagine though? Think about as a woman, you had a man that worked 14 years to be with you. 14 years, and you saw him working day in and day out, and you knew he was doing all that for you. I can't the joy, the the excitement, the she must have felt so wanted, so loved, so needed, so special. She gets the man, they get married, and just when she thought that you know everything would be perfect, she realizes there's still something missing. Sometimes we spend years chasing something, thinking, once I get there, once I get that, once I become that, everything inside me will settle. And when we arrive and realize that we still bought ourselves with us. We're still ourselves. Yep, we got it, we got there, we did that, but we're still ourselves. So now here's where Rachel's story starts from feeling familiar again. Because pain has a way of making us impatient, and just like we saw with Sarah, and you know what? I didn't even connect these two. Sarah and Rachel, you know, they're not, but I'm just as a saying we say they could be cousins because they got a lot of similarities. So Rachel, she reaches a moment when she decides maybe I need to help this happen. Maybe I need another way, maybe God needs assistance. Poor Rachel, if she had just got with Sarah and could have saved herself a lot of grief. But Rachel continues being Rachel. She's like, I gotta help God out. I'm not having children. I'm gonna try it another way. I'm gonna help God out. So she gives Bilha, Bilha. I'm not sure if I'm pronouncing it right, but she gives her servant to Jacob, just like Sarah. And let's slow down here again. Because sometimes we read this and think, what? But you know, as when we were talking about Sarah and Hagar, culturally, this wasn't random. This was a recognized practice. The idea was if the children came through the servant, they would be counted as hers. The servant belonged to Rachel. So whatever the servant had belonged to Rachel. So that was the practice, that was the cultural norm, that was the acceptable practice in those days. You know, it's like a woman getting a surrogate, but not going through all the paperwork or having the permission of the other one because this woman, Bill Ha or Bill Haya, B-I-L-H-A-H. Forgive me for mispronouncing that. But let's just call her Miss B. Well, Miss B was a servant, and Rachel, she sends her servant in because that's what they could do. Miss B, like Hagar, doesn't have a choice. She has to go in and do what needs to be done so that she can have this baby. And honestly, underneath all of this, Rachel is not trying to manipulate, she's trying to stop hurting. She's trying to stop hurting. And I know that sometimes, whoo, we can go through things that hurt so bad, we feel like we would do anything to end the pain, to make it stop. So that's where we see Rachel at in this story. That's where we find her. She's hurting so bad, she just wants the pain to stop. So the servant has children. And Rachel names them. And when she names them, you can hear her heart and the names that she's giving her children. Now, in Bible days, and culturally, in a lot of places, still, names mean something. You just didn't pick out a name because it was cute, or you know, your girlfriend's niece was named, you know, this name. Names meant something. So she named him Dan. And that meant God judge my case. The next child, Neptali, I have wrestled. And right there, that word wrestle feels honest. Because she isn't describing victory, she's describing struggle, comparison, pressure, trying to keep up, trying not to lose herself, trying to feel like she still matters. And girlfriends, cousins, and in between, sometimes what looks like success is really exhaustion wearing nice clothes. Really exhaustion wearing nice clothes. I know we have this way of you know, comparing, we see somebody else dressed nice, walking nice, just nice, everything. And we think they got it going on. But we don't know the pain that they may be going through. That's why we have to be careful about. Comparison and wishing we were in somebody else's shoes. But then something beautiful happens in Rachel's story. And I love how scripture says it. It says, God remembered Rachel. Now, this doesn't mean God had forgot her. God didn't lose track of her. This phrase means the appointed moment arrived. The season shifted, the answer moved, and suddenly what felt impossible opened. Rachel conceives. And she gives birth to Joseph. Now can you imagine that moment? Years of watching, years of waiting, years of wondering, years of compassion, years of asking, why not me? And now, finally, she's holding what she thought she might never have. And I think for a second you might expect the story to settle. Like, okay, now she has it. She started out with the man who desired her, loved her, sacrificed for her. She couldn't have kids, but she sent in her servant and had children. Now she's pregnant herself. Now that has to be it. After all this time, finally, now she has it. Now she can rest. But something interesting happens. She names him Joseph. Which means, may the Lord add another. And I sat with that for a minute. Because after finally receiving, she's already thinking about what's next. Now, before we judge, want to call her ungrateful. Want to throw rocks. This actually feels human too. Because sometimes we finally arrive and realize our hearts haven't learned contentment. And this part, this part is heavy. Because Rachel's story doesn't end where we would normally think it should, or where we would stop reading. You know, some of us stop reading when they, you know, he got, he worked 14 years for Rachel. Okay, her life is good. That's all we need to know, and we keep moving. But we've skated over some important parts. We've skipped around over some things that we thought weren't important. It wasn't anything for us to understand. But Rachel has, there's more to her. There's more to her. So years later, remember she named him Joseph. May God add another. Years later, she becomes pregnant again. And this time, you know, they're traveling and her labor begins. Please go back and you know, read the story so you can see this for yourself. And this labor is different, it's difficult. And she realizes she isn't going to survive. And as she's dying, she names her son Menoni, son of my sorrow. And that name hurts because this is the moment, the thing she waited so long for. It comes with loss. So she had the first, she had Joseph, she was so excited, made God add another. She wanted to feel that again. You know, you might think, well, that she wasn't satisfied. She went through all that. She had the man, now she got the kid, and I don't know her reason. I can just imagine that she was just so happy that she didn't want to lose that happiness. She wanted it to happen again and possibly again and again. I mean, who doesn't like that rush that we get, you know, that that feeling of joy, of happiness when something that we've been waiting for, praying for arrives. So I'm not gonna me personally say she was ungrateful, but we don't know. We don't know. So, son of my sorrow. Now I can't even imagine a child growing up with that name. Think about that. Think about it. So she realized that it it comes with a loss, what she waited for for so long. But Jacob changes the name. Jacob changes the son's name to Benjamin, which means son of the right hand. And I don't know, but something about that always feels tender, like sorrow wasn't allowed to become the final identity and Rachel's story in there. Not with a perfect ending, not with a complete resolution, just human, beautiful, complicated, real. That's how life is, right? That's how life is. I mean, it looks like in the beginning she's got it made, she's got it all. So, what's the real tea? Let me tell you what this really is. Friend to firm. Rachel's story is about getting what you wanted and realizing it doesn't answer everything. It's about being deeply loved and still carrying emptiness, about looking at somebody else's life and thinking they got the better deal. And learning everybody is carrying something. Because Leah wanted the love that Rachel got, and Rachel wanted the fruit that Leah had. And both women had pain. And maybe that's the lesson. Comparison, you know what comparison does? Comparison lies. It tells us peace is somewhere else. It lies, it tells us that the other person's life is absolutely perfect. And if we were just that person or just had what they had, or look what how they looked, or walk like they walked, or talk like they talked, we would have it too. Comparison lies. So, all right, our Monday move. Now, for those that may have just stumbled across this podcast and like Monday move, what is that? Well, Monday move is kind of where we take what we've learned from the ladies and you know, apply it in our own lives. We think about it. You know, we're not only hearers here, we're doers. So we're not just getting information, we're not just getting tea and talking about these women eavesdropping into their lives between the verses for nothing. Monday move. So here's the Monday move. I want you to ask yourself, and like I said, you don't have this isn't reporting back to me. This is for you. You can write it down, you cannot, but ask yourself, what am I expecting to complete me that actually can't? Hmm. Or do you think it's a relationship, success, recognition, a certain milestone? Are you looking for that to make you feel complete? And actually it can't? Then ask what part of me still needs healing, even if I got everything I wanted. Because peace isn't always found in getting more, but sometimes it's found in finally settling within. Within yourself. It's not always about getting more. It's on the inside. So if you ever felt like you got what you prayed for, but something still felt unfinished, or you've looked at somebody else and thought, their life must be easier. Do me a favor, if you can, if you're driving, working, I understand. But if you can, just stop for one moment. Stop whatever you're doing and really, really lean in. Come a little closer, a little closer. I want you to hear this. You're not wrong for wanting more. But don't mistake longing for lack. And don't assume that somebody else's blessing means your life is incomplete. Don't assume that somebody else's blessing means your life is incomplete. All right. I'm gonna leave it right there because Rachel's story, it reminds us being chosen is beautiful. But peace, peace has to go deeper than being chosen. Fulfillment has to go deeper than being chosen. I'll meet you right back here next time. Between the verses. Real talk, real faith with Kelly Laverne from Sunday to Monday.

SPEAKER_01 33:42

Before you go, don't forget.