Originally published Friday, 16 October 2015.
Today I’m thinking about Hannah. About how much turmoil she must have felt the day Peninnah threw it in her face that she didn’t have a child. I can almost see her wailing before God, crying out, and pleading for a miracle. In fact, she was making such a fuss that Eli thought she was drunk.
She wasn’t…
Hannah was a desperate woman full of sorrow who simply could not wait still any longer.
This word still can go so many directions, but all I see in this picture is that Hannah prayed. Yes, she felt bitter from an empty womb turned gaping wound refusing to heal, but in all this… Hannah prayed.
She trusted God. So what if she yelled and cried and looked like a drunken hot mess, she was pouring it all out to the living God, the only One she could trust to eventually deliver her from grief.
It’s perfectly okay for stillness to mean begging, pleading, and wailing, as long as it always ends with trusting.
Hannah grappled with God and because she trusted Him with her deepest pain, she stayed in the presence of a stillness that can only come from the Almighty.
Do you know that, oftentimes, stillness comes after the emotional dam finally breaks? I have no idea why, but it’s usually necessary to lose it before the process of healing begins.
You can trust God with your deepest pain, friend.
Through it, He will lead you deeper into stillness.
Love,
Jennifer
PS: If you’ve missed any of my October Series, The Struggle to Live a Still Life, Click here and scroll down for previous posts. New email subscribers receive my eBook, Mercy Waits, as a gift!
The story of Hannah is found in I Samuel.
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