When You Feel Invisible: Lessons from Leah

If you’ve ever played an icebreaker game, you know the importance of keeping a few facts about yourself ready to share at a moment’s notice. For years, I relied on the same three details whenever I found myself in a round of “Two Truths and a Lie.” See if you can figure out which one isn’t true:

1. I’ve traveled to Japan.
2. My middle name is Rachel.
3. I once threw up in the United States Supreme Court building.

Here’s the answer: while I do have a biblical middle name, it’s not Rachel—it’s Leah. If you’re familiar with the story of two sisters in Genesis 29, you’ll understand why I've often joked that this middle name is the “real” reason I’m still single: a Rachel would have been someone’s first choice. (My mom, for the record, has never found this funny. Sorry, Mom.)

When reading this story in the Old Testament, no woman wants to be a Leah. To identify with her is to expose the most tender places of your heart—the ones you usually keep hidden beneath competence or self-deprecating humor. 

In her story, you may recognize what it feels like to be measured against someone else from the beginning or to learn early on that love is conditional—based more on your usefulness than any inherent worth. You may still carry the sense of being the second choice in every room you enter. You may know the ache of being unwanted as a single woman, watching others be chosen while you wait to be noticed. Or you may feel lonelier still within marriage, longing to be cherished and hoping love will finally arrive.

As I’ve studied Genesis in recent weeks, something struck me: when the story of Rachel and Leah begins, the author carefully documents Rachel’s entrance, but Leah is not named until later. The narrative follows the point of view of their future husband, Jacob, and in those early scenes, it’s Rachel alone who captures his attention. Leah never appears in Jacob’s line of sight—much less in his affection. 

Before Leah ever becomes part of this undeniably messy love triangle, she’s invisible within the story itself. Before she’s given to Jacob in the dark of night, before deception makes her a wife, she’s overlooked in the light of day. It seems only fitting, then, that in the shadows of someone else’s story, Leah’s begins. 

The Other Sister 

In the chapters before Rachel and Leah are introduced in Genesis 29, the focus is on Jacob, Abraham’s grandson. We follow him through years of family dysfunction: parental favoritism split between Jacob and his twin brother, Esau (Gen. 25:28); a deceptive scheme that secured Jacob both his brother’s birthright and his father’s blessing (25:29–34; 27:1–40); and a fractured sibling relationship that forced Jacob to flee his homeland (27:41–46). 

Jacob’s life as he knew it was over. Carrying all of this emotional baggage and more, he left the land of Israel. “He reached a certain place and spent the night there because the sun had set” (28:11). That night, the Lord appeared to him in a dream, reaffirming the covenant He had made with Abraham. God promised that Jacob’s family line would continue—generation after generation—until one day, one child, one Seed, would come as the Messiah who would save the world.

The Lord concluded with this promise: 

“Look, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. I will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” (v. 15)

Scripture doesn’t say. Yet as the oldest daughter of the household, Leah would have known the rhythms of her home and noticed the excitement surrounding a guest’s arrival. Maybe she was nearby when Rachel ran home to tell her father, listening from a doorway as the story was retold.

For a month, Jacob stayed in Laban’s house (v. 14): a month of meals and labor, of shared space and shared stories. Leah likely overheard stories of Jacob’s family, his homeland, and the promise God had given him. When she is finally introduced, the contrast between the two sisters echoes the rivalry that had marked Jacob’s own relationship with Esau:

Now Laban had two daughters: the older was named Leah, and the younger was named Rachel. Leah had tender eyes, but Rachel was shapely and beautiful. Jacob loved Rachel. (Genesis 29:16–18) 

Laban saw in Jacob an opportunity to address two problems at once: he could exploit Jacob to become rich, and he could marry off his less-desired daughter—one who might otherwise never be chosen. Knowing Jacob’s weakness—that he would do anything for Rachel—Laban took advantage of it. A deceiver himself, he tricked Jacob, whose past had already been shaped by deceit.

Jacob agreed to work seven years to marry Rachel. At the end of that time, Jacob, impatient and frustrated, went to Laban and demanded, “Give me my wife” (v. 21). A wife he received—but not the one he wanted. “That evening, Laban took his daughter Leah and gave her to Jacob, and he slept with her” (v. 23). 

There’s no overstating Jacob’s shock, anger, and disappointment “when morning came, [and] there was Leah!” (v. 25). But imagine Rachel’s emotions, knowing her sister had married Jacob, not to mention how Leah felt when she saw Jacob’s reaction upon realizing who she was. 

“Why have you deceived me?” Jacob asked Laban in Genesis 29:25. “Laban answered, ‘It is not the custom in our country to give the younger daughter in marriage before the firstborn. Complete this week of wedding celebration, and we will also give you this younger one in return for working yet another seven years for me’” (v. 26). Jacob did just that, he “slept with Rachel also, and indeed, he loved Rachel more than Leah” (v.30). 

From Rejection to Blessing 

What are we meant to do with Leah? What hope is there in her story?

By the end of Genesis 29, we begin to see glimmers of redemption—not only for Leah, but for all of us. 

1. The Lord remembered Leah. 

When Jacob arrived, Leah was absent from the narrative. But there’s another main character who is silent even longer. In Genesis 29:31, we see the first direct reference to the Lord—and His attention is directed not toward Jacob, but toward Leah: “When the LORD saw that Leah was neglected, he opened her womb” (v. 31). 

2. The Lord graciously allowed Leah to experience the emptiness of false hope. 

When Leah gives birth to her first son, she names him Reuben saying, “The LORD has seen my affliction; surely my husband will love me now” (Gen. 29:32). The next two sons follow this same pattern—each name revealing her longing for Jacob’s affection. At the birth of her third son, she says, “At last, my husband will become attached to me because I have borne three sons for him” (v. 34). 

Leah knows the pain she’s living with, and she believes her husband’s love will save her. Or that a child will. Or that if she can somehow fix her circumstances, happiness will finally come. But none of it works. Then, with the birth of her fourth son, the pattern breaks, and the false hope she’s been clinging to falls away:

And she conceived again, gave birth to a son, and said, “This time I will praise the LORD.” Therefore she named him Judah. (v. 35)

This time, Leah does not mention her husband—only the Lord. She does not use the generic name for God but praises the LORD, Yahweh, the personal God who came to Abraham and Isaac. The God who came to Jacob and promised, “Look, I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go. . . . I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you” (28:15). 

As Pastor Tim Keller noted, “Leah must have heard the promise: the promise of the seed, the promise of salvation . . . She began to grab hold of the idea of the Lord, Yahweh, the God who will save by grace.”¹ Leah’s story holds up a mirror to our own hearts. Relationships, plans, and attempts to control outcomes will never fully satisfy—but the God of Jacob still offers true hope.

3. The Lord turned an unwanted woman into a bearer of His blessing.

Look back at Genesis 29:31–35. One Old Testament scholar notes:

This section reports the first four births. The merciful God graciously gives Leah, the unloved wife, the firstborn child and half of Jacob’s sons. Her children include the priestly line of Levi and the messianic line of Judah. By giving birth to a daughter (30:21), she has more children than the other three women combined and the perfect number of children, seven.²

Judah, the son for which Leah praised the Lord, appears in Matthew 1 as part of the lineage of the Messiah Himself. Through God’s grace and mercy, the Lord used Leah to advance His redemptive plan—to be part of the fulfillment of His greatest promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and to be an essential member of the family of the future King Jesus, the hope of the whole world. 

Two Truths and No Lies

If you see yourself in the beginning of Leah’s story, it matters that you also see yourself in the end. God was faithful to her, and He will be faithful to you. So when you feel invisible or unwanted, keep these two truths at the ready: 

1. Jesus, your heavenly Husband, pursued and loved you, even at your least desirable—and His love will never fail. (Matthew 10:29–31; Ephesians 2:4–5; Romans 8:38–39) 
2. Heartbreak and hurt can become a doorway to hope. When the world’s rejection stings, turn your eyes to Jesus and, like Leah, declare: “This time I will praise the LORD.” (Habakkuk 3:17–18; Psalm 42:11; Psalm 63:3–4) 

Let Leah’s story remind you that the overlooked are never forgotten and the unvalued are always seen. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son—graciously using the lineage of an unlikely woman—so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have joyful, abundant, everlasting life.

¹ Tim Keller, “The Girl Nobody Wanted,” Preaching Today, sermon preached October 11, 1998, https://www.preachingtoday.com/sermons/sermons/2006/april/girl-nobody-wanted.html.

² Bruce K. Waltke and Cathi J. Fredricks, Genesis: A Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2001), 409.