Relatable Hannah...

I haven't had a Biblical post in awhile, and there's a reason for that. Lately, my spiritual life has felt kinda dry. There it is; I said it. I'm being real on this blog, even if it isn't popular. Maybe this can be blamed on the numerous distractions of new motherhood, I don't know, but it's the truth nevertheless. More regular Bible study would help it some, I'm sure. Part of the dryness has manifested itself in me just feeling like I feel an alienation between my everyday life and the Bible.

After 20+ years of reading and studying the Bible, sometimes the stories just don't feel fresh. I feel like it's hard to have a new take on the feeding of the 5,000 or Jesus speaking with the Samaritan woman. I want to see something different, but familiarity occasionally breeds apathy. I feel a disconnect, and I wish that Jesus would show up and tell me how this thing that happened a long, long time ago that is rich with Jewish context that I don't completely understand can apply to me in my world of microwaves, Pampers, and high speed internet. But I don't think that He will show up in my living room and sit down on my couch, so it is up to me to beg him for new insight and new relatability to old, old stories and Bible verses that have begun to seem too familiar in a bad way.

So today I started my Bible study by praying and asking for new insight to an old story. I turned to 1 Samuel 1, and I started reading. And, thank you, Father, I did see several new details that I hadn't tuned into before. This story is very special to me, and with Mother's Day coming up, I wanted to revisit it again with thankfulness. But this time, I saw things that made Hannah seem so relatable in her hardship. We could meet with a hug and a smile of understanding today on my street corner. For those of you, my sisters, who know Hannah's pain, I hope this encourages you today.

1 Samuel 1: 3, 4-7- Hannah, her husband, and her rival wife, Peninnah, would go up the house of the Lord to sacrifice every year. "When the day came that Elkanah sacrificed, he would give portions to Peninnah his wife and to all her sons and daughters; but to Hannah he would give a double portion because the Lord had closed her womb. It happened year after year, as often as she went up to the house of the Lord, she would provoke her; so she wept and would not eat."

I had looked at it before, but I hadn't really noticed that this yearly Day of Sacrifice was a trigger day for Hannah. It was probably a day that she dreaded year after year. After all, it happened "year after year" for her. For many women, Mother's Day or the date of a miscarriage or the due date of a lost baby are trigger days. Hannah had one, too, and this was it. Each year, on their march to the temple to sacrifice, her heart was probably very heavy. She knew what was coming, and her heart ached. Maybe she went through day to day life with a measure of contentment, but this trip was her yearly reminder that she was barren.

The portioning of meat to all the sons and daughters of Elkanah provided another opportunity for her to feel alone. I picture it this way: Penninah lines up her sons and daughters to get their portion on one side of the room, and Hannah stands on the other side, utterly alone. I remember a visit that David and I took to a church in Alabama. We visited a variety of churches, some weirder than others, but this was the one I labeled the "extreme fertility" church. Somehow we missed the significance of the "be fruitful and multiply" verse on their web page, but there was no doubt when we got there. Families of eight or ten children were the norm, and to make matters worse for infertile us, communion was taken as a family unit. The husband/father would go up and get the bread and grape juice and bring it back to his family and serve it to them. I remember the pain I felt when David went up to get the portion for us. It was embarrassingly large for two people. I vowed at that moment that we would never go back. The ceremony highlighted our empty arms, just as the meat apportionment did for Hannah.

And then there is the song of thanksgiving that Hannah sings after she has given birth to Samuel. Sometimes I have looked at it and felt like it didn't apply to me because it starts with "My mouth speaks boldly against my enemies." I didn't really look much further because boasting against enemies didn't seem to apply. But I read further and realized that this is really a song about how God does the impossible. It is an acknowledgement that it is He and He alone that decides the fate of Hannah and everyone else. Even the weakest, and most infertile, like her, can be lifted up by God. "The bows of the mighty are shattered, but the feeble gird on strength," or "He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit among nobles, and inherit a seat of honor," are examples of this. Hannah is saying that the Lord is the only one that turns things around in a moment, even when the situation seems the most hopeless. Now that, I can relate to.