“But I am very discouraged, and I was pouring out my heart to the Lord…I have been praying out of great anguish and sorrow.” (1 Samuel 1:15-16)
{To fully get the best understanding of this post, reading of 1Samuel 1-2 is recommended.}
Hanna came as she was, broken and discouraged. She didn’t waste time putting on a good face. She didn’t try to pull herself together. She didn’t try to talk herself out of the way she was really feeling inside. She had grounds on which she could have found a way to console herself. Isn’t it exactly what had she been doing for years? After all, her husband still loved her. Year after year Peninnah, her sister wife, gave her husband a child. Hanna kept hoping. The more children Peninnah bore, the more superior and unkind she had become toward Hannah. She taunted her and humiliated her. Her husband didn’t do very much in her defense. He didn’t really understand the aching whole in her heart. Year after year he tried to brush off her growing feelings of despair by saying: “Why aren’t you eating? Why be downhearted just because you have no children? You have me – isn’t it better than having ten sons?” Elkanah obviously hadn’t read “Five Easy Steps to Comfort Your Wife”. He considered himself such a gift to women, that just being married to him should have been enough for any woman to be completely fulfilled. Poor Elkanah, he would have been so embarrassed if at some point he actually understood how very little his platitudes comforted Hannah. To his defense, he did take care of her and didn’t send her away, like some could have done in his times, just because she was unable to produce heirs for him.
Hannah felt deep anguish because her inability to have children. The world contemporary to her placed woman’s value on her standing within her family, especially on her ability to give birth to children. No women were doctors, activists or globe trotting relief workers who found their fulfillment in their work or life mission. Hannah felt that her calling in life was to become a mother. Ironically this was the one thing she couldn’t have. Her feeling of inadequacy resulted in emotional distress. It’s in this moment of acute heartache that we are given the privilege to first meet her. In Samuel 1, the window to her soul suddenly opens for us and we see her raw, unfiltered emotions. I have to admit that as I was reading these verses, I felt entirely unworthy of this gift of looking at this woman’s very private moment with God. But I was also profoundly grateful for the opportunity to learn something from her. We see Hannah going to the Temple, the only place she knew to go to be heard. She didn’t go there to talk to the priest. She wasn’t even aware of the fact that the Temple priest, Eli, was sitting in his customary place watching her. She clearly went there, to the place which represented God to her, so she could pour her heart out to Him. We are not told whether she stood or knelt, whether she covered her head or folded her hands. The only words describing Hannah in this moment refer to the posture of her heart. And it is a thing of beauty! We were told she was in deep anguish and crying bitterly as she prayed to the Lord. I can only imagine the Lord lowering Himself to embrace her with tenderness and compassion. I wonder if she could feel His presence. She knew that there was no help for her apart from the Almighty God she believed in all her life, but now she took a step to really trust Him with her heart. She was reeling from her bitter disappointments and she couldn’t contain her grief anymore. Something about her raw emotion, her unrefined presentation of herself, her abandoning of acceptable public image, drew me to her. I’m certain that God’s heart was drawn to her as well and He met with her in this moment, exactly where she was, the way she was. The Lord was pleased with her, even if the priest thought she was a hot mess. She was so transparent in her emotions, that Eli thought she was drunk. It made me think immediately about the other time in the Bible the believers were accused of being drunk. It happened on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit filled them for the first epic time. They were not in control of themselves anymore. Likewise, Hannah’s heart took over while she prayed. The moment she came to God as her authentic self, without a mask or regard for what others might think of her, the magic happened.
God meets with us at the point of raw honesty, true dependence on Him, desire to be near Him. This is where real intimacy happens, but it has to start with us presenting to Him our authentic hearts. He doesn’t need us to be put together neatly. He doesn’t care if we are presentable and if we choose fancy words. I dare to say that He doesn’t even need any words from us. Just the fact that we come and want to be near to Him and that we present our hearts however broken and mangled they may be is enough to invoke His compassion and response. Hannah had to explain herself to Eli, out of respect for his priestly position, but she didn’t have to explain herself to her God. He was entirely pleased with her. I am certain that even before Eli finally comprehended what was taking place there, and gave Hannah her blessing, God had already poured out His healing on her.
I can’t help but make some game changing observations about the nature and focus of faith Hannah displayed through her prayer and her attitude. She did not at all presume that her faith or righteous life had earned her any favor. It wasn’t the size of her faith that made a difference it was the size of her God that did. She approached God as “the Lord of Heaven’s Armies”, as if she was heading into a battle. She obviously needed His great power on her side. Yes, she was crushed and weakened with her opponents constant ridicule and shaming. In herself she, no doubt, felt small and unworthy. But she never lost sight of how big and powerful her God was. It was in this kind of great power, not her own abilities or credits, that she chose to trust her life and her future. Her faith is demonstrated to us in verse 18, where we read that, “She went back and began to eat again, and she was no longer sad.” Her honest and relational prayer changed her. Was she realistically 100% sure that she would now have a son? I’m inclined to believe that it was a different kind of assurance that she walked away with. I dare to think that this new encounter she had with God gave her confidence that no matter what happened, she could trust Him.
As we draw closer to God and make our relationship with Him “the first thing” in our lives, we gain a new perspective of circumstances and events surrounding us. We begin to see things with His eyes. We slowly start to understand His heart, and all that that used to be “the first thing” in our lives is not “the first thing” anymore. Knowing God becomes “the first thing”, and we start to realize that regardless of what the outcome of our current circumstances, we can trust Him.
Hannah’s prayer of praise in chapter 2 is the testament of her renewed relationship with the Lord. She knows His character now. She knows Him not only as the Almighty Powerful God she first had come to seek, but as a defender of the poor and humble, those who have been wronged and humiliated. As a woman whose fate had been flipped up side down, she gives all credit to God. This previously barren woman, who is now the mother of seven, does not elevate herself and does not become haughty like Peninnah. She praises God for turning her life around and for every blessing He has given her. She testifies that the Lord has made her strong. He has become her Rock. She desired children and the children were given to her. But she didn’t stand on her ability to bare children to build her new position in society. She stood entirely on God, her Rock. He was the One who made her strong, with or without children. Could it be that from the very beginning of the story God was using her aching need to bring her closer to Him? Could it be that He knew all along that her suffering would become a springboard which would eventually allow her to fly the moment she entrusted her heart to Him. God’s intention was not to withhold any good thing from His child, but for her to be compelled to finally come to Him. Her brokenness drove her to seek God and the relationship resulting from it was of more value than the gift she asked for.
I have learned so much from Hannah and I thank God that He wrote her character into His Book. In my own faith walk, her story has helped me to become more honest and authentic, which allows me to experience God in a new way. Each day of this faith walk is a new opportunity to trust Him with circumstances of my life which overwhelm me and cause my heart to ache. My alarm clock goes off very early in the morning, not because I am such a good little Christian, but because I am weak and I need to be made strong by the only person who can do it. I have grown to look forward to this precious time of “coming near” the God of the universe who also, shockingly enough, comes near me, the simple woman in need. How humbling and awesome is this! Hannah taught me that it does not take gigantic faith to start seeing miracles in our lives. In only takes faith in a gigantic God.
Distressed but not forgotten.
