Penninah – unbearable – year after year, relentless
Elkanah – loving, accepting, bewildered
Eli – failed priest with wicked sons to follow him
Hannah – years of pain, grieving, bitter soul

Many biblical characters live for years with unrelieved pain. Jacob and Leah. Sarah and Hagar. Rachel said to Jacob, “Give me children or I’ll die.”

2. What was their relationship with each other?

Hannah and Penninah: Rivals. One has his children and the other his love.
Elkanah and Hannah: Love without knowledge or understanding of Hannah
Eli and Hannah: A priest with great sorrow and a woman with great grief. His pain is his children and hers is the child she cannot have.

3. Where is God in this story?

Does He speak? Does an angel speak? Does a prophet speak? He is silent..and we are not used to that. We want God speaking all the time. God cannot be silent in our world. He is always speaking to someone who is wanting to tell us about it. His silence makes us uncomfortable. Why doesn’t He speak to us when He speaks so often to others?

4. Why does Hannah want more than she has?

She thinks a child will make her equal – a whole person.

How does she pray?

Focus – one thing only but a big thing
Intensity – from the heart
Persistence – year after year

What is it you want from God with such focus, intensity and persistence?

5. What does she get from the priest?

He’s a bad father and priest who mistakes her for a wicked person – like his sons.

She’s a servant who sees in him what he should be…and he blesses her.

She gets the “peace” he gives her. How do we know that? She eats and her face changes. Before she even conceives. It is not resignation – but peace and there is a big difference. Psalm 4:8. “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety.” How do we, like Eli, give peace and a blessing without the burden of needing to “fix” things for people? Not like the prosperity gospel that says God will fix everything and give you all your desires. How do we simply bless? One friend gave me her response. Simply say “I understand”. That does mean you own the problem and it does not promise a fix. It is a word of peace.

6. Look at what she says to him.  May your servant find favor. “Hannah” means favor and that is what she finds. She finds peace and she finds herself – even before she has a child. “May I be who I am already and that is enough.” That’s often what God is waiting for from us. To simply be what we are and for Him.

She finds grace and release from Elkanah’s question: “Am I not enough for you?” and release from the rivalry with Penninah.

She found grace – no matter what. And extraordinary things happen when we find grace. When we let go of what we desire the most for ourselves.

What we desire but are unable to give back is what destroys us. What she wanted the most became her greatest gift. Wendell Berry writes about men who can never find contentment – “They can’t fish in one place for fear that there are more fish in another place.”

7. Her son finds favor. 1 Samuel 2:26: “Now the boy Samuel (A)continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the LORD and also with man.” Who else do we know later who finds favor? Jesus. And it all begins with Hannah discovering favor. That’s how it begins and it goes on from generation to generation. It may be the greatest gift you can give your own child.

And she went on her way…no longer the same. She had not heard from God but had received something from him. She came in “bitterness of soul or poverty of soul” and she went in peace for the first time. Scripture is full of the phrase “went their way” with some rejoicing at being healed, some sad like the rich young ruler and some like this. She went her way changed. She went her way with richness of soul.

The story could have ended here – but it doesn’t. What happens?

8. God heard – Shema El. He doesn’t speak but He hears. I don’t think he heard just one person but three.

He heard a husband who didn’t know what to say. He heard confusion.

He heard a woman whose prayer was silent. He heard consecration.

He heard a priest’s blessing in spite of his own imperfections and fatal flaws. He heard compassion.

There are times when God is silent and we are surrounded by God’s silence, the cruelty of others, conflict, confusion, bitterness, hypocrisy, sorrow and grief. But things don’t have to be perfect and pure before God will work. He works in spite of selfishness, meanness, meaningless rituals, misunderstanding, flawed priests and ignorance. He often works without announcing His intentions or even acknowledging our circumstances.

Can God trust us with His silence?

But God hears and there is grace and peace…and the gift of a son.

It’s not really a story only about having a child but about finding favor and grace, finding rest from comparison and longing, of trusting God even when he is silent.

“And so I came to belong to this place…Being here satisfies me, I have no thought of going away. If I knew for sure that I would die here I would be glad. I laid my claim on this place, had made it answerable to my life. Of course, you can’t do that and get away free. You can’t choose, it seems, without being chosen. For the place, in return, had laid its claim on me and made my life answerable to it.”

Place is more than geography, isn’t it? It is coming to terms with your circumstances and, sometimes, the silence of God. It is resting and trusting God realizing what it means to want something so badly that you will give it back once you have it.

Psalm 4:8: “In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety.”