Wrestling in the Dark

He had sent everyone ahead.

His wives. His children. His flocks. Everything he had built in twenty years across the river and into the night.

He stayed behind alone.

He said he needed time. Maybe he was afraid. He was about to meet his brother Esau for the first time since he stole the blessing.

Esau had four hundred men with him.

And then, in the dark, someone grabbed him.

No words first. Just hands.

Jacob fought back. Of course he fought back. That was the only thing Jacob had ever really known how to do.

They wrestled all night. The whole night.

The man couldn't win. That was the strange part. He should have been able to. But he couldn't throw Jacob.

So he touched the hollow of Jacob's thigh.

One touch. And Jacob's hip came out of its socket.

He still didn't let go.

Even injured, even in pain, Jacob held on and said he would not release the man until he received a blessing.

The man asked him his name.

Jacob. The name meant heel-grabber. Supplanter. Deceiver.

He said it out loud for maybe the first time without hiding from it.

The man renamed him Israel. One who struggles with God.

And then he was gone.

Jacob limped into the morning. Into his reunion with Esau. Into the rest of his life.

He never walked the same way again.

He called the place Peniel — the face of God.

Because he had seen it, he said.

And somehow lived.

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