Hannah: A Model For Moms In Distress

I once heard someone describe parenting in a really humorous way. When asked “what is it like to be a parent”? The answer was: It’s often really really hard to the point of being awful, and then there are times when being a parenting is so rewarding that it makes the difficulty and awfulness worth it.”

Now, all the Mother’s Day cards focus on the rewarding aspects of being a mom. But today I want to talk about the other side of that equation. When your days are difficult, moms, and filled with distress, what should be your good and godly response? Does the Bible speak to this? It does. Hannah is a model for moms in distress. May the Lord bless the preaching of his word.

#1: Hannah allowed herself to feel her distress

What was her distress, anyway? There are three aspects to her suffering.

First, and most obviously, Hannah cannot have children. 1Sam 1:1-2 “There was a certain man of Ramathaim-zophim of the hill country of Ephraim whose name was Elkanah the son of Jeroham, son of Elihu, son of Tohu, son of Zuph, an Ephrathite. He had two wives. The name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other, Peninnah. And Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.”

Maybe some of you know the pain that comes from trying to have children and not being able to. The inability to have kids is a unique kind of pain.

But I want to suggest that it was even harder and more painful for Hannah. Today when someone is unable to have kids, it’s hard and painful and disappointing.

But in the ancient world, for the Israelite woman, having children was absolutely everything.

What did God promise Abraham, the first Israelite? Gen 15:5-6 “And he brought him outside and said, “Look toward heaven, and number the stars, if you are able to number them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” And he believed the Lord, and he counted it to him as righteousness.”

It would be through the having of children that God would bless Israel and the world, because it would be through the having of children that the Messiah would come.

And what that did was, it raised the issue of having children to a higher level and made it a theological and spiritual issue, not just a biological or emotional one. Hannah was unable to have children.

Second, she is tormented by a rival wife who has had children. Why does Hannah’s husband Elkanah have two wives? Certainly not because God likes polygamy. Just because the Bible presents polygamy doesn’t mean the Bible is saying it is okay. In fact, the whole tenor of this story suggests that having more than one wife is a recipe for disaster — and hurt. There is strong language in verse 6: “Her rival used to provoke her grievously to irritate her, because the Lord had closed her womb.”

Elkanah was a godly man who was faithful to the Lord. But being godly doesn’t mean being perfect, and even godly men make decisions that dishonor God. [Robert Bergen, NAC 1,2 Samuel, on 1:3] Hannah’s husband actually may have married his second wife after his first Hannah was unable to have children. [Edersheim, Bible History, vol IV, p5] That would be an example of trying to solve a legitimate problem in an ungodly way. [see Apologetics Study Bible]. Hannah feels rejected, useless, ashamed, passed over, devastated.

Lastly, Hannah is hurt by a husband who doesn’t understand her pain. “Hannah, why do you weep? And why is your heart sad? Am I not more to you than ten sons?” (1 Samuel 1:8 ESV). Hannah is so broken she can’t eat, and she is weeping. What does her husband do? He makes it about himself.

Hannah allowed herself to feel her distress. That means she didn’t deny that she was in distress. She didn’t try to put on a good face and disguise her problems. How different is that from what what we good Christians do when we suffer, which is put on a smile, tell ourselves to think positively, tell everyone we’re fine when we’re not — because after all, Christians are too blessed to be distressed, right? There is no hint of that here with Hannah. Hannah allowed herself to feel her distress. And it’s healthy and good.

Moms, if you’re struggling, give yourself permission to feel it. And then, taking your distress to God.

#2: In her distress, Hannah poured her heart out to God

In her distress, Hannah poured her heart out to God.

Once a year most faithful Israelites would make a pilgrimage to worship the Lord. Jerusalem is not their capital city yet. There were numerous places where families could go to worship God and offer sacrifice. Shiloh was one such place.

When Hannah and her family go to Shiloh this time, Hannah has had all she can take. Look at verse 10: “She was deeply distressed, and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.” Those words are so important: in her distress, she poured out her heart to God.

Not everyone does that, you know? Many of us don’t take our pain to God. We prefer to suffer alone.

Why do we do this? Maybe we think God is too busy. Surely other people are going through worse things, we say. It’s selfish for me to ask him for help.

When email was a brand new thing — which is a shockingly long time ago, by the way, almost 30 years — Bill Gates published his email address in the New Yorker. He was unprepared for the tidal wave of emails he received from the general public. Does Bill Gates want to respond to all those emails? Of course not. So he does what any computer tech genius would do: he invents a program to solve his problem by filtering out the important messages. Those messages he would respond to. The rest were erased. [Craig Brian Larson, 750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers & Writers (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2002), 414.]

If we think God is too busy for us, we dishonor Him by thinking thoughts that are unworthy of Him. Your life, your pain, your sorrow — no matter how relatively bad or good it is compared with others — it is important to God.

Or maybe we think God doesn’t want us around when we’re at our worst. Maybe we picture God as being like the parent who when their child is crying, they say “go to your room until you can calm down and then come back and we can talk.” That’s not our God. He wants us to come to Him in our distress. He can handle it. And that’s when you need Him the most.

Because here’s the thing that happens when we don’t take our sorrow to God: our heart is hardened, gradually, one step at a time. And eventually we become angry and resentful toward others. And we don’t realize that we’re really angry and resentful toward God. Follow Hannah’s example. Pour your heart out to God.

1 Peter 5:7 ESV

casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.

Psalm 50:15 ESV

and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”

Psalm 34:18 ESV

The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

In her distress, Hannah poured out her heart to God.

#3: Having poured out her heart, Hannah left her sorrow in God’s hands, and God answered her prayer

Hannah left her sorrow in God’s hands, and God answered her prayer.

Hannah sort of bargained with God, didn’t she? Maybe that’s wrong of her, do you think? What do you think? It would be wrong if Hannah dishonored God in the process. But she didn’t. She glorifies Him. While her family celebrates, she goes into the temple (by the way, this is the only mention of an actual temple of the Lord at Shiloh [Baldwin, TOTC, loc. cit.] Look at what she says closely with me.

1 Samuel 1:11 ESV

And she vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.”

First, notice how she addresses God: “O, Lord of hosts!” It’s a name for God that emphasizes His complete power over heaven and earth.

Second, look at how she addresses herself: “your servant”. This is not the typical OT word for “servant”. This is a word that elsewhere refers to a female slave. [Baldwin, TOTC, loc. cit.; Bergen, NAC, loc. cit] If God really is the Lord of hosts, the commander of all the earth, the only proper posture with which we can approach him is as a servant whose sole existence is to do His will [Bergen].

Third, the nature of this mother’s request shows that she is surrendered to God. This is no selfish request. How do we know that? Look with me again at verse 11: “If you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head.” This is how we know Hannah is surrendered to God, because she is willing to do something which if we are honest we ourselves would not want to do, and that is to take the children God has given to us and be willing to give them back to Him as His own possession.

Moms, you know your kids aren’t really yours. That’s a painful realization, isn’t it?

We parents think our kids are ours, especially at first. When they’re small and dependent on us. But the older they get, and the closer the day comes when our house is no longer where they come home to at the end of the day, we are reminded that they aren’t ours. God has loaned them to us. Or to change the metaphor, we are stewards of our children. But they belong to God first and always.

Hannah was mature enough to realize this at the outset.

Notice Hannah’s intimacy with the Lord here, moms. 1Sam 1:12-13 “As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was speaking in her heart”.

Moms, do you have this familiarity, this intimacy, with God? You can. You don’t have to be a spiritual giant to have this intimacy. If you’re a believer in Christ, it is there for your taking. God has intimacy with you. But God wants you to have intimacy with Him.

Hannah has this intimacy, this familiarity with God. And yet, just as her husband misunderstood her pain, here Eli, the priest, misunderstands her intentions. “...only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman” (1Sam. 1:14 ESV). And out of that misunderstanding, he rebukes her. “How long will you go on being drunk?”, he asks her. “Put your wine away from you” (1Sam 1:14 ESV).

Even Eli, the priest, her pastor, so to speak, lacks the spiritual discernment to see that this is a woman who has a deeper intimacy with the Lord than even he does.

But that doesn’t stop Hannah. “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation” (1Sam. 1:15-16 ESV).

You know what irony is, right, moms? How’s this for irony: The man who misjudges Hannah’s intentions will be replaced by a man ten times Eli’s spiritual stature. That man will be Hannah’s son, Samuel, for whom she is now in the temple praying, all the while being misperceived as by Eli as a drunk.

But that’s okay. How many of you know that when everyone else in your house or your workplace or your family misunderstands you, God always gets you? The Lord of hosts understands Hannah, and that is all the matters.

Moms, God gets you even when no one else does. Hannah knows this. Eli does well here to reassure her: “‘Go in peace, and the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.’ And she said, ‘Let your servant find favor in your eyes.’ Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad” (1Sam 1:17 ESV).

Hannah left her sorrow in God’s hands. She doesn’t know what the outcome will be. How many of you believe God always answers prayer? Always, with yes, no, or wait.

The missionary Henry Martyn found himself at sea on a ship for nine months. Going around Cape Horn, they battled storm after storm. Seasickness was his constant companion. Starvation, disease and death were real possibilities when people traveled back then. This is what he wrote in his journal:

The Preacher’s Notebook: The Collected Quotes, Illustrations, and Prayers of John Stott Henry Martyn’s Dedication to God

“I pray that this may be my state, neither to be anxious to escape from this stormy sea that was round the Cape, nor to change the tedious scene of the ship for Madras … but to glorify God where I am and where He puts me”

Having left her sorrow in God’s hands, Hannah is content and at peace, whatever the outcome.

And we see Hannah’s faith verse 19: They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the Lord; then they went back to their house at Ramah; and Elkanah knew Hannah his wife.” That took faith on both of their parts, right? How many times had they been sexually intimate, hoping and praying for God to bless their union with children? How many times had they been let down when their union led to disappointment, yet again?

But this time is different: 1Sam 1:20 “And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, “I have asked for him from the Lord.””

Hannah allowed herself to feel her distress. In her distress, Hannah poured out her heart to God. Having poured out her heart to God, Hannah leaves her sorrow with God, and God answers her prayer. Now finally, having received the answer to her prayer, Hannah responds with sacrifice and gratitude.

#4: Having received the answer to her prayer, Hannah responds with sacrifice and gratitude

Having received the answer to her prayer, Hannah responds with sacrifice and gratitude.

Moms, those of you who have kids who have launched out of the house into adulthood, raise your hands.

Now, for those of you who raised your hands, how many of you would say that was easy thing for you?

But Hannah — she releases Samuel not when he’s 18, but most likely by the age of three — maybe four. The time for the annual pilgrimage to the temple in Shiloh draws near. But this time she’s not going to go. When does finally take Samuel, it’ll be permanent. So she tells her husband: “As soon as the child is weaned, I will bring him, so that he may appear in the presence of the Lord and dwell there forever” (1Sam 1:22 ESV).

Hannah is basically saying, “Look, when I release him, when I pay my vow that I vowed to the Lord, he won’t be coming back with me.” [Bergen NAC p73] Can you relate to this, moms? Hannah’s saying, “I want to keep him with me just a little while longer.

Every day I watch the remaining time that we have with our kids grow shorter and shorter. When they’re little, you feel like you have eternity with them. There is an endless sea of days with your kids at home ahead of you. You know the day will come when they’ll leave home. But now that our kids are teenagers, I don’t just know it. I feel it.

That’s one of the reasons why I have such respect for my parents and especially on Mother’s Day for my mom. When I turned 16 years old, they began the process of letting go. Let me tell you church that some parents really botch this. My parents handled it with such grace and wisdom and patience. By the time I turned 17, I was given a lot of freedom. And by the time I was 18, there wasn’t such a struggle to release control because they had already done it gradually, bit by bit.

But Hannah had made a promise to the Lord. As the Lord of all creation, she owed Him that. Don’t make a promise to God you can’t keep. But it wasn’t just her sense of duty that compelled her to send Samuel to Shiloh. It was her intimacy with God. She had such deep, familiar intimacy with the Lord that she knew He could be trusted with her little boy.

So she released Samuel into a life of sacrifice and service to God. Hannah allowed herself to feel her distress. Hannah took her distress to God. Hannah left her sorrow in God’s hands. And Hannah responds with sacrifice and gratitude.

Conclusion and call for response

Samuel was the Elkanah and Hannah’s firstborn son. Every firstborn son belonged to God.

But Samuel was being set aside as a man who would be especially consecrated to God. Samuel would be what was called a Nazarite.

We know that from way back when Hannah first made this promise to God. 1Sam 1:11 “And she vowed a vow and said, “O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life” — and here it is — “and no razor shall touch his head.””

A Nazarite was a man who had especially set himself apart for God. The sign was that he would not cut his hair while he was a Nazarite. It was usually temporary. But Hannah pledged Samuel to the Lord forever. That dude had some long hair and a long beard!

By the way, Samuel’s name: what does it mean? It means to ask.

Hannah asked God for Samuel. God gave Samuel to her. When the day came, Hannah gave her son back to God, back to the Lord who made her barren womb come to life.

English Standard Version Chapter 1

27 For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to him. 28 Therefore I have lent him to the LORD. As long as he lives, he is lent to the LORD.”

And the God who made her barren womb come to life — He also had healed Hannah’s crushed and broken heart. He had given her new life, as God gives new life to everyone who comes to Him for that new life through faith in His Son Jesus Christ.

And out of her healed heart, out of the new life He had given her, she gives her most priceless treasure back to the One who had given, and in so doing she showed that the Lord — not Samuel — was actually Hannah’s most precious treasure.

[PAUSE]

Maybe that’s the best thing you can do for your kids, moms. Maybe the best thing you can do for your children is to live your life in such a way that they see that God is your highest and most precious treasure, and when the day comes to say goodbye, you release them into the hands of the only One who can really be trusted with their safety and their spiritual security.

Ultimately, God Himself has made the same sacrifice He calls you to make, moms. He did not spare His own Son for you. The God who calls you to give your children to Him in faith has given His own Son for you. The Bible says, Rom 8:31-32 “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

Have you trusted in Him for your salvation?

Have you committed your life to Him?

Have you then made a public profession of faith in Jesus?

Have you been baptized to symbolize your commitment to Him?

Is it time to rededicate your life to Him?

Is it time for you to join this church, to become a full member, committed to Christ and all-in with His bride, the church?