• When
Hannah felt like giving up, she stood up.
• When
we feel like giving up, choose to stand up!
• When
you want to give up, stand up!
These
thoughts flooded my mind after reading 1
Samuel 1:1-20. It’s a true account
of a woman named Hannah, her husband Elkahana, and Elkahana’s other wife
Peninnah. Peninnah was jealous of Hannah
because Elkahana always blessed Hannah with twice as much when it came time to
journey to make the annual sacrifice for the covering and cleansing of sins. Hannah received twice as much because she had
no children. I find it strange that
Peninnah acted this way towards Hannah due to the fact that Peninnah was the
one who was able to bear children, while Hannah had none. Peninnah was blessed but it wasn’t
enough. Hannah was afflicted by two
hardships; she was bullied by a jealous woman and she wasn’t able to have
children.
I’ve been in
Hannah’s shoes many times in my life from elementary school and onward and I’m
sure you have as well. Girlfriends
jealous of what you have, who you’re friends with, and intellect on a subject
that somehow they feel inferior in. When
women act out these emotions of jealousy it looks a lot like lying, gossip,
bullying, verbal and physical abuse.
Hannah was experiencing some of these reactions from her rival Peninnah. Peninnah had purposed to irritate Hannah to
the point that Hannah would cry and not eat.
Year after year this scenario would play out and Hannah would be bullied
by Peninnah while the ever-present reminder that she was barren was on the
forefront of her mind.
Then one
year, one day, Hannah changed everything.
Hannah was at the Temple and when she had finished eating and drinking, Hannah stood up. She did
something different than in years’ past.
Hannah not only wept, same as before, but she prayed to the Lord and made
a vow to dedicate her son to the Lord in service for his whole life; that is if
the Lord was to give her a son. She was
extremely distraught as she prayed in her heart and the priest Eli sees her
lips moving but no sound is coming out and therefore accuses her of being
drunk.
Not only is
her rival beating her down verbally and now the priest too? He had no idea what was really going on in the
background of her life. This is exactly
what happens today. People making
assumptions about you without knowing what you’re going through. Here Eli assumed that Hannah was drunk out of
her mind in the Temple. Instead, as she
explains, she is “deeply troubled” and that she was “pouring out my soul to the
Lord” and also that “I have been praying here out of my great anguish and
grief”.
Has there ever been a time, a situation, and a
relationship that has been of great anguish to your soul; a time where your
heart aches inside of your flesh that it almost feels like you just can’t take
it anymore? Hannah got to that point and
she made a choice. She made the choice to not to give up, but
stand up and do something different.
She decided to break the cycle, take a risk and in her desperation for
breakthrough, risking her self-image before the priest in the Temple she laid
her soul bare before God.
Hannah could
have looked at the priest in all her hurt and pain and could have walked away
feeling like the world was against her, but again, she pressed through. She stood up for
herself by explaining her demeanor. After
hearing Hannah’s explanation, Eli blessed her with words of encouragement. Many times all we need is someone to just
listen and encourage us.
This is our
chance to view this situation from two different sides. 1) We can be the “Eli” in someone else’s life
by listening and bringing an encouraging word at just the right moment or 2) We
can be the “Hannah” who is in desperate need of an encouraging word, take that
word and use it to pull us out of our despair. Hannah didn’t give up, she stood up. At any
given moment we are either one or the other.
The story of
Hannah’s struggle ends with a son whom she names Samuel which was “because I
asked the Lord for him.” It ended
because she asked the Lord for his intervention in her life. Possibly this heartache could have been
resolved sooner if she had chosen to stand up and
pour her heart out to the Lord in any of the given years prior. Don’t wait any longer, choose to be like
Hannah; stand
up.
Don’t shut God out when you are deeply troubled, choose to invite
Him into your situation. Don’t give up, stand up.
