Sadie - An Old Woman With
"Eyes that Despise"

I recently ministered at a small Pentecostal fellowship in a rural area on two different weekends. During the week I counseled several of their members individually and ministered at several evening home group meetings. On Saturday night, before preaching my first Sunday morning, I got to share a brief personal testimony and a few words about the ministry we do here at DTLM. That was when I got my first impressions of Sadie.

Sadie was about 80 years old and seemed to be one of the most bitter, and sour-looking old women I had ever seen. Each time I made eye-contact with Sadie, I wished I hadn't. She had a way of looking down her nose, and setting her eyelids at half-mast, that made me think she was disgusted with every word I was speaking. I was so struck by her apparent contempt for me, or what I was saying, that I would lose my train of thought.

I was instantly reminded of an old saying that I heard many times in the past and used to think was a quote out of the Bible, "Hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned." I found myself wondering what kind of husband could have been the cause of that look on a wives face. Or was he himself an unfortunate victim of a look that seemed able to turn a man's heart to stone. I was certain that Sadie never had to raise a voice or spank a single child to get their attention and obedience. That look could freeze a child in their tracks.

That night I went to bed perhaps a little less enthusiastic about preaching the next day because of Sadie. The following morning I was stunned to see Sadie singing in the choir, looking just as miserable and disgusted as she had the night before. I wondered if the rest of the congregation could see it, and if they found her expression as unloving and un-Christ-like as I did.

After worship I preached from Hebrews 12:15, encouraging them to “See to it that no one comes short of the grace of God; that no root of bitterness springing up causes trouble, and by it many are defiled." I explained how roots of bitterness in us defile others and cause them to treat us the same way that others have in the past who have hurt us and caused those roots of bitterness to grow in the first place. Those roots of bitterness are often the result of judgments that we have held against parents and others, and unless we repent of them, we will draw others into judging us the same way.

As I taught I'm sure that I purposely looked away from Sadie so that neither of us would be made uncomfortable. I was unaware that I was being defiled by roots of hurt and bitterness in Sadie, and that I was “judging her” the same way she had unavoidably judged her mother when she was a child.

That night Sadie still looked the same and sat right in front of me as I taught a small group about how to appropriate the Cross in the bitter and wounded areas of their lives. Sadie's face was now indelibly imprinted on my mind. Although her presence didn't seem to affect anyone else in the meeting, it was affecting me. I was taking the expression on her face personally, and beginning to feel despised and rejected. Her presence was oppressive to me, and I felt greatly hindered as I tried to minister with her present.

Sadie came to almost every group meeting that week. Her expression never changed. She didn't seem to care how she looked, and she never admitted any desire to receive personal ministry. At the last evening meeting I decided to try to approach this woman who appeared so unapproachable. I half-jokingly suggested that she let me have a personal time of prayer with her on my next visit to her church. She surprised me when she agreed, but I still doubted how open she would be to receiving ministry.

On my second visit just a few weeks later, Sadie was still there, and the sour look on her face was unchanged. After four days of ministry, including counseling sessions with two of Sadie's sons, she still showed no desire for personal ministry. Ironically, the issues that her sons came to receive ministry for, left me clueless as to why their mother appeared so miserable. In fact, they described her as an incredibly loving mother. That left me more convinced that Sadie must have an offense against me or what I was teaching.

In mid-week, I reminded Sadie of her agreement to let me pray with her. She agreed, and in the session that followed was put in remembrance of how judgmental and selfish we human beings are even when Jesus Christ, who refused to judge and commanded us not to judge, is dwelling in us. I saw again how often I fail to pray about what I discern in someone, and how often I react out of selfish motives.

Sadie's life is proof that what has been sowed will be reaped, if we judge we'll be judged, and that bitter roots defile others around us. As she related her story I could not help but weep with her, and cry out to God for this woman to be mercifully delivered of eight decades of misery.

Sadie's mother was a young white woman who had found herself being pursued and seduced by a dark-skinned foreign man that her parents did not approve of. His relentless pursuit of her lead to a secret affair and to pregnancy. Too afraid to tell her parents, especially her very religious mother, Sadie's mom planned to run away when the pregnancy began to show, and to return after she'd had the baby and given it up for adoption. She carried the child greatly regretting its presence in her womb.

Unfortunately, Sadie's grandmother discovered her daughter's condition and angrily she insisted that her daughter marry the man, and keep his child. Her mother told her that she had made her bed and she was going to have to sleep in it. That even would have been the best thing for Sadie and her mother, except for one thing - Sadie's grandmother never forgave her daughter for her sin, and she never accepted her son-in-law or his first child.

Sadie's dad left shortly after her birth to serve in the military for the next two years. Sadie and her mom had to live with her grandmother in order to survive. Her grandmother never accepted or showed any love to the illegitimate child. Furthermore, she never let her daughter take any delight in the child that had been "conceived in iniquity." To stay in her mom's good graces, Sadie's mother learned to pretend to shun her child. She would speak to Sadie with disgust and force her to be silent any time Sadie's grandmother was present.

Upon her father's return, Sadie was taken out of her grandparents' home to live with her own parents. Sadie had been despised by her mother for so long that she understandably drew nearer to her father. The difference in her response to her two parents caused her mother to become very resentful to her and jealous of her husband's success in relating to his daughter. Sadie said she never saw much love and affection between her parents, but then again she would have found it impossible to believe that her daddy could love anyone as mean as her mother.

Her mom had several more children in rapid succession. All of those children seemed to be loved by their mom and able to return love to her as well. Sadie was soon seen as a child with a bad attitude, and a chip on her shoulder that her mother needed to work out of her and beat out of her. Her mother turned Sadie into the maid for the rest of the children when her dad was not around. When he was home Sadie was watched by her mom with jealous contempt whenever her husband showed Sadie love.

Sadie could never bring herself to tell her father of the mistreatment, because Sadie's grandmother and mother had trained in her infancy to be silenced by just a look, and to remain perfectly silent in their presence. The look that her mother usually wore, guaranteed that Sadie would never tell of the harsh slavery she was experiencing under her mom.

To add even greater injury, Sadie's grandmother continued to visit frequently. She would bring gifts for each of her other grandchildren, but she would either stare Sadie out of the room before they opened their gifts, or she would force Sadie to sit and watch in silence while every child except her opened a gift. Whenever the family visited her grandmother's house, all of the other children were allowed to dip into a jar of pennies for a trip to the ice cream parlor or candy store. Sadie learned to sit and suffer silently as she was denied the blessings everyone else enjoyed.

The Reaping Begins

Is it any wonder that Sadie got pregnant as a teenager, and married a foreigner who wanted to rescue her from her family? She dearly loved her husband, but in the years that followed, she could never show him that love around her family. She thought it was just the terrible shame that she bore for her sexual sin and getting pregnant before marriage, but it was a repeat of all of what had been sowed into her as a child of her mother.

As Sadie had children, she labored diligently to treat every single child with absolute fairness so that she would not repeat the sins of her grandmother and mother. She succeeded in raising children who felt very loved, but she accomplished that only with a great deal of self-sacrifice that again reminiscent of the deprivation of childhood.

When her husband would buy her gifts, she would return them for things that the children needed, especially if one of the children had been slighted in any way. Because she did this, her husband stopped bringing her any gifts. Because she watched him to insure that he never paid more attention to one child than another, he focused on his children and stopped paying any attention to her. Sadie had worked and sacrificed herself into being the odd-one-out as the rest of the family enjoyed one another.

As we talked about her children who were all grown, it seemed at first that they had all been spared the kind of childhood that Sadie suffered, but as she spoke of one of her sons, Sadie exposed what she felt had caused her the worst personal suffering. Like Sadie's own mother and father, one of Sadie's sons had gotten a foreign girl pregnant who wanted to be an American citizen. This caused Sadie to re-experience much of the pain of her earliest childhood. The girl's family shunned her for her sin. They told her they would have nothing to do with her or her child.

Out of compassion, and to prevent the child from being born in shame, Sadie took in the girl that her son did not want to marry. The cruel irony is that this young woman began to hate Sadie because simply because she could not get her son to do the honorable thing. Rather than showing any gratitude for Sadie' love, she only showed contempt, and even raised the child to bitterly hate Sadie and her son.

Typical of Sadie's life, she had made a sacrifice to spare someone else, and had herself become the victim once again. Even worse, at this point in her life Sadie was so tired from a life of sacrifice that she was unable to keep herself from coming to hate her "daughter-in-law" and her grandchild. Finally Sadie was left with no recourse but to force them out of her life with deep regret but also with deep resentment. In doing that Sadie admitted feeling what her grandmother had obviously had felt about her.

Appropriating the Cross

Sadie saw that even her careful love of her children had not prevented the repetition of the sin of her grandparents, her parents, and she and her husband. Her son's sin had in turn caused a woman and her child to be shunned by her parents.

Sadie prayed with me to forgive her parents for conceiving her outside of marriage, and her mother for carrying her in fear and shame. She forgave her grandmother for making it impossible for her mother to show her love. She forgave both of them for looking at her with eyes that despised her and for teaching her to cower and suffer in silence like an abused slave. She forgave her mom for the abusive treatment and slavery that came later due to her mom's jealousy.

We affirmed that Sadie had indeed "shared in the fellowship of Christ's sufferings." Like Jesus she had “come unto (her) own and they received (her) not.” Just as the legalistic, judgmental, and jealous Pharisees had done to Christ, Sadie had been “despised and rejected.” We prayed that the old Sadie would be crucified with Christ, and that she would no longer reap the deprivation, sacrifice, and slavery to which she'd become accustomed. She brought to the Cross her fleshly vows and determination to never be like her mom and grandmother. We prayed that Sadie would no longer reap being despised or looking as if she was despising anyone. We also prayed that these sins would be purged from the lives of her children and their children.

How many years should a woman like Sadie have to wait before someone applies the power of the Cross personally to her life? True, her roots of bitterness would defile others around her. It is my prayer that the church would become more aware of this kind of defilement and better equipped to minister to the wounded and embittered like Sadie.

Grandparents Must Be Taught to Intercede

It is also my prayer that grandparents would be taught to take an honest, even if painful look, at the fruit in their own lives, and in their children and grandchildren. If they would confess their sin and make intercession, I believe God would move to heal their living descendants of the sins of the forefathers. So much of the church is trying to reach the children when we still have the fathers and mothers among us to repent and pray. Until we reach and teach them, the reaping continues in the lives of those they love. "God is not mocked. Whatsoever a man sows so also shall he reap."