Mission To Children

	About MTC	Donate Online	Contact Us

Home

Hannah (Part 2)

Last week, we began walking thoughtfully down a hallway. The walls of this hallway are lined with portraits of various women and men. Behind each portrait is a story. And behind each story is a worshiping heart.

In our last broadcast, we began talking about two women, both married to the same man. In the cultural setting that surrounded 1 Samuel, chapter 1, polygamy was permissible - although not necessarily wise. One wife was named Peninnah, and she was the mother of a number of children. Hannah was the other wife, and she had no children at all - much to her dismay and much to Peninnah's malicious delight.

Elkanah, the husband, was a faithful worshiper. Year after year he went to a place called Shiloh, apparently to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. This festival was similar to our Thanksgiving Day. It was a time to celebrate the memory of God's care during the desert journey to Canaan and a time to thank Him for His blessing on the year's crops.

Now this is where the plot thickens. This was a celebration that was certain to heighten Hannah's anxiety: During the days everyone was thanking God for His blessing, she was reminded that God was withholding His blessing from her, giving her no "crops," no children.

Hannah was a woman who, like her husband, was a worshiper. Peninnah knew this, and in her desire to hurt Hannah, she selected special worship events as times for special provocation. Part of the worship experience during the Feast of Tabernacles was a thanksgiving dinner that signified fellowship and communion with God. It was at this dinner, year after year, that Peninnah took demonic delight in embarrassing Hannah.

There is something in verse 3 of chapter 1 that contributes significantly to the story: Note that God is called "the LORD of hosts." It's the first time in the Bible that this term is used! Sometimes translated "the LORD Almighty," this term draws attention to the fact that God is sovereign over all powers in the universe. He is sovereign over human armies, over angelic armies, over evil powers, over the sun and rain that nourish crops—and He is sovereign over the processes that allow a wife to become a mother.

What a dramatic moment to introduce this name for God into Scripture! Here's Hannah, knowing well that Peninnah is going to make this season a difficult time for her. Yet, Hannah resolves to worship God with the family anyway, traveling to Shiloh to celebrate her sovereign God's blessing on the crops of other people. She came to worship Him as the LORD Almighty, the One Who could bless her with "crops" too, if He so desired.

But why didn't He want to? Did God enjoy her humiliation every time someone came to these family gatherings with a new child of their own, slyly checking out Hannah's figure or asking "subtle" little questions to find out if she was pregnant? Why did He allow Peninnah to be such a bitter and malicious rival, to brazenly take advantage of Hannah's vulnerability and anguish, to scrape fiendishly at Hannah's raw wounds?

By the way, have you noticed that family holiday gatherings are often times of high stress? There is the stress of changed schedules and the stress of extra activities. Extra adrenaline flows as you anticipate seeing family members again.

When you finally do get together with them, other stresses creep in. Someone else's career is going better than yours. You may have the uncomfortable feeling that you didn't do or become what you and your relatives had expected in the glory days of your youth. Now you face them and wonder what they really think of you behind their happy-face masks. Maybe they're married and you're single. Or maybe you're married and they're single! Maybe their spouse is better looking than yours. Someone else got a new car, a new house. Or a new baby.

"God, why me?" Hannah must have asked. "Is this what I get for worshiping You? Did I do something wrong? Are You listening when I cry for help? Why did You not only close my womb, but open my rival's? Is there no justice? Is it that You just don't care?" On a scale from 1 to 10 for self-worth, Hannah probably registered a 'minus 9.' She felt rejected. Set aside. Humiliated. And very desperate. What happens to a person who is that stressed, that shattered, that defeated, that desperate? (P.S. Have you ever felt that way?)