November 19, B

Hannah's act of giving Samuel here has larger dimensions than even she could fathom. What makes her one of the more remarkable characters in the Bible is that somehow she knows that. Imagine this woman who had yearned for years for a child, who miraculously gets pregnant and gives birth to a son, who then freely gives this child to God's service before he is a teenager! The longed for gift she now gives away. She understands on some level that the gift of this child was not just to make her content and ease her pain, but rather to help change the society in which she lived, a society clearly in danger of ruin. Hannah could see the big picture here and so not cling to Samuel as we would clearly have expected her to do!

Patrick Miller writes that giving thanks reminds us that "we are not autonomous and self-sufficient." Hannah, in her song, understands that she did not cause this child to be created and born; Samuel's conception and birth came about by divine intervention. Her recognition of that makes her gift of Samuel a natural act of faith. Sometimes, often, "it's not about us." When we give thanks as she did, we realize that so much of what is good in our lives did not come about because of our work or our merit. Her prayer recognizes the one who is ultimately the Giver of all Gifts, even if those gifts seem delayed as did her child.

In the years that I struggled with infertility, Hannah's story and her prayer helped me, not because I believed God would miraculously intervene to put a child in my womb. I understood that God needed Hannah's child for a purpose, and that perhaps no child of my womb was so needed. She also helped me understand that there is a bigger picture than just my family in God's world. And that, as I discovered three adoptions later, good things do come to those who wait by the power of a loving God.