And Her Face Was No Longer Sad

Rarely do I read the story of Hannah and the birth of Samuel without noticing some other jewel shining in the depths.

 

Things that are outside our frame of reference can sometimes not elicit the same imaginative sympathies and identification.  I’m not sure we can quite wrap our minds around sharing our man with another wife, one who plays with her children when we never have conceived, one who taunts us mercilessly about not having any boys or girls we’ve borne, one who gloats over the ignominy that comes from being barren.  Not even her husband’s reassurance of love could take away the bitterness of her situation.  But Hannah’s heart is revealed to us in a special way, and we see what she does with her deep sorrows.

She is consumed with prayer, not with overloaded emotions.  She goes to the house of God and pours out her soul before him, utterly lost in her communications with the Lord Most High even to the point that she seems drunk.  “I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.”  Her Lord is her confidante, her Savior, her solace and help.  This, after she had fasted.

After she had done these things, she reveals her utter confidence in her Lord’s care of her, in her Lord’s having heard her cry, in her Lord’s ability to work powerfully on her behalf.  She reveals it by her actions and by “the look on her face”.  “Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.”  What her husband could not do by reassuring her, was accomplished by her perfect trust in her heavenly relationship with Him.

Does my countenance show that I believe God’s promises?  That I believe, if I have prayed, that I may in confidence leave my petitions before the throne,  go my way, and my face no longer shows grief, anxiety or pain?  How would I bless my husband and children, those around me, if my face shines with a trust in my Lord?  

What do I have in my life that is not under the sovereign intentions of my Lord, under His perfect providential care?  I cannot see the future, either, to know what God intends to do some years hence because of providences unwinding now; and Hannah could not possibly know that God would indeed open her womb and that thousands of years later, her heart responses would be read by millions of women as a testimony of faith in her loving Creator, Redeemer and Eternal King.  That the name Samuel would be a name of honor, signifying a man of God, meaning “heard by God”.  That his story would be immortalized in the holy canon of Scripture, read by all who love Jesus Christ.  That her son would be the man who would anoint the great King David:  “Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers.  And the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward.”

She didn’t need to know all this.  She simply rose up from consuming prayer, went her way, and her face was no longer sad.

Tomorrow: the second half of thoughts on her amazing example to us