Michal

1 Samuel 19:8-17New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Again there was war, and David went out to fight the Philistines. He launched a heavy attack on them, so that they fled before him. Then an evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his spear in his hand, while David was playing music. Saul sought to pin David to the wall with the spear; but he eluded Saul, so that he struck the spear into the wall. David fled and escaped that night.

Saul sent messengers to David’s house to keep watch over him, planning to kill him in the morning. David’s wife Michal told him, “If you do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.” So Michal let David down through the window; he fled away and escaped. Michal took an idol and laid it on the bed; she put a net of goats’ hair on its head, and covered it with the clothes. When Saul sent messengers to take David, she said, “He is sick.” Then Saul sent the messengers to see David for themselves. He said, “Bring him up to me in the bed, that I may kill him.” When the messengers came in, the idol was in the bed, with the covering of goats’ hair on its head. Saul said to Michal, “Why have you deceived me like this, and let my enemy go, so that he has escaped?” Michal answered Saul, “He said to me, ‘Let me go; why should I kill you?’”

One of the stories in the Bible that has always intrigued me has been the story of Michal, David's first wife.  Like her brother, Jonathan, Michal also loved David from the moment she met him.  She was part of a grand scheme of Saul's to try to get David killed, and was the second choice for David, marrying him only after her sister, Merab, was married off to someone else.

One of the reasons I've found the story of David and Michal so engrossing is that it plays out like a fairy tale that doesn't end happily ever after.  It follows, sadly, the pattern of many marriages that begin with love at first sight: starting with grand romance, and ending with a sad dose of reality.  

Like a fairy tale, the girl (in this case a princess no less), meets the charming young commoner and marries below her station for true love.  She even saves his life, rescuing him from the clutches of her evil father...

...and then everything falls apart.

The last happy moment David and Michael have is this last night together.  From here, he will escape and end up falling for and marrying Abigail.  And Saul will force Michal to marry someone else too.

And then when David comes back from hiding from Saul, he will demand Michal be taken from her new husband and returned to him (basically as his property).

Michal's story ends for the most part when she mocks David for how silly she thinks he looks praising God so David promises her she will never have a child by him.

The fairy tale turns into "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."

Michal's story is poignant to me both for how she is used by the men in her life, but also by her own pride and vanity at being the daughter of a king.  In someways, she is a victim.  Yet she isn't always sympathetic.  In the end, Michal doesn't turn to her God for help when David mistreats her, she turns away instead, just as her father did.  She relies on her own pride.

There is someone earnestly and honestly real about Michal's story to me.  Her falling for David and then their not ultimately accepting each other as they are, is a story that plays out over and over again in relationship after relationship.  In marriages, and from parent to child.

Jesus calls us into community to love and accept even our enemies.  Yet sometimes, that seems easier to do than with the people that live under the same roof as us.  Relationships get broken and fall apart when we aren't looking.  When time isn't put in.  When expectations aren't met.  

How can God help us to deal with those broken relationships in our lives?

Merciful God, help me to heal all those relationships that are broken with those that are closest to me.  Amen.