ChangeMakers: Unsung Women of the Bible (Vol 2)Muestra

Hannah

Women carry “great anguish and grief” close to their hearts (1:16), and yet we robustly go about our lives, managing households, holding space for others, multitasking the chore list, and creating warmth and memories for those we love.

We may love God and seek to follow in Jesus’ ways, but we can’t shake the piercing injustices, the disturbing circumstances, and the accumulation of hurts that settle into our souls. There are cracks in our firm foundation, and no matter a hairline sliver or grand fissure, the pain of unmet longings accompanies us as close as our shadow. For Hannah, that was her inability to conceive a child, which in those days was considered a Divine disfavor. Day after day, year after year, she carried a hollow pain instead of carrying a child.

As if that hollow burden of unmet expectations isn’t enough, our pain, grief, and suffering are often met with exacerbations like Peninnah (Elkanah's other wife, mother to his children, and Hannah’s antagonist), who, out of their own deformation, provoke us, intentionally aggravating the places of pain to fuel their own malicious entertainment. Others, like Elkanah (Hannah and Peninnah’s husband), offer patronizing comments, irritating us with their insolence and insensitivity.

But Hannah lived her life waiting for God, repeating her prayer year after year, asking for a child (1:7). Hannah audaciously believed God heard her prayers beyond the mediator of a priest. Perhaps some years were met with depression, assuming the answer was “no.” Perhaps some years, she felt a stir of hope from the heaviness.

And so, Hannah waited on the God of Possibility.

Four women voice powerful and theologically-rich songs in Scripture. Miriam, the prophet, sang about deliverance. Deborah, the judge, sang about victory. Mary sang of liberation. And Hannah sang of God’s sovereignty.

Hannah’s deep faith is on display as her belief in the sovereignty of God prevailed even through the foundation fissure that infertility had caused. She flipped the shadow of her soul into foreshadowing Divine reversal. “The Lord brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up” (2:6).

There is no guarantee that our unmet longings will be fulfilled on this side of heaven. Hannah knew that, yet it didn’t stop her from asking God for the desires of her heart. Hannah’s prayers

and hope in the God of miracles carried her to live between the polar tensions of pain and possibility.

Prayer & Meditation

As you meditate on the image of Hannah above, consider the raw emotions that she shared with God: her hurt, disappointment, fear, jealousy, and maybe even anger.

Then, honestly assess your life. What unfulfilled daydream lingers just beyond reach or haunts you late at night? Honestly assess: how do you manage the pain of your unmet expectations?

How might God be inviting you into deeper prayerful communion? What posture might help you dare to enter the space between hope and despair?

“And now may the God of Hannah tenderly and intimately hold you close, amidst the ache of unmet longings, and may you offer your tenacious, raw, and sacred prayers boldly towards your loving God in this liminal space."

Written by Rev Beth Paz

Photo Credit: The Emotional Story of Hannah in the Bible by The Bible Reveals