Then Sarai said to Abram, “My wrong be upon you! I gave my maid into your embrace; and when she saw that she had conceived, I became despised in her eyes. The Lord judge between you and me.” So Abram said to Sarai, “Indeed your maid is in your hand; do to her as you please.” And when Sarai dealt harshly with her, she fled from her presence.(Gen 16,5-6)

It was nothing new under the sun that women would occasionally had a brush with one another and the high-pitched notes of their shrieking voices would echo into the surrounding tents. But the next day they were able to stand on the doorstep and gossip about news, relatives or children. But there was now an implacability between Sarah and Hagar that seemed to sink deeply under the skin of both. Sarah was like changed. She, who had devised the whole plan, was suddenly beginning to feel bitterness not only towards Hagar - but also towards the unborn child she had been looking forward to so much!

Abram had hitherto believed that the situation would be settled, but now he was walking around more and more gloomy. When, after a few weeks, Sarah finally asked him to banish the pregnant Hagar, he of course refused - what the hell was Sarah thinking, was he about to give up his own child?

He was faced with a stark choice: Sarah or Hagar; Sarah or... his child. At that moment he fell into a heavy despondency. He could see no reasonable path, no solution. It occurred to him that, after all, it was all her fault, so wasn't it right that she should be the one to pay? He had never told her about the hardest choice he was making at that moment, how much he was ashamed of it, but he couldn't help himself: wouldn't it only be right that the one who should leave was... Sarah? Abram could start a new family, with a woman who would give him not one, but a dozen more children, and their laughter would echo in his tent, the laughter of new hope instead of this drudgery that was completely consuming him.

"May the Lord judge between you and me." So that is how the relationship of two once beloved people can escalate. How she can be blinded, he thought - Sarah is crying out to my God to help her... against me! Abram felt so pressured that he found himself feeling disgust for her at times. The thought of the rejection of his child crushed him. Who was more important to him now: her or it? He had to decide, and it was the hardest decision of his life.

For the second time he buried the hope of his own child, and it was clear to him that now it was definite. The first time it happened when he lost faith that his God would give it to him. The second time, when he banished the woman who was pregnant with his child to save his marriage. A marriage he no longer felt comfortable in.

Abram was devastated. There was alienation in his tent, he felt guilty for the way he had treated Hagar, he felt that he could find no understanding on either side, and most importantly, he had written off all the good that the future could still bring him and to which he had clung so tightly. For he knew at that moment that futher hope is nowhere to be found.