Hannah~A Portrait of Feminine Grace

As I read this week’s chapter, and read of Hannah’s stellar character, I remembered how many times in the past I’ve contrasted my imperfections and failings with the perceived perfection of women in the Bible . . . and felt an unshakable cloud of condemnation hover over me. It felt like this: {me<Hannah} Less. Than.


Since my Sunday School class consists of several women who have been divorced and remarried, some with children not walking with the Lord, and we have shared the heartache together, I wanted to start off the class with the truth from Romans 8:1


So the devil couldn’t heap condemnation on them.


No matter where you’ve been, or what you’ve done or failed to do, if you trust Jesus to forgive and cleanse you, you have a clean slate. Daily. 


Read: Lamentations 3:22-23 Every. Single. Morning. Yesterday is OVER, today is a brand new day!


The consequences of our sin are not washed away necessarily, (Though, in His lavish love He may do that!) But God will bring good from anything you are suffering as a result of your sins and failures or those done to you. Not only that, but He will REDEEM them!


Jesus is our Blessed Redeemer!!!


So, if the devil accuses you, or seeks to compare you to others and hurl accusing arrows at your heart, stand firm in the grace of Christ. Do not be moved from you position as a chosen, forgiven, blood-bought child of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.


You. Are. His. Beloved. ~Rest in it!~


Don’t forget that all your sins are cast into the bottom of the sea, blotted from the record, removed far from you because of the blood of Jesus.


Okay, now that that is settled, lets talk about Hannah.


A woman whose husband, Elkanah has another wife. Named Peninnah. My friend calls her Penny, and since that is much easier, I will too.


If you’ve been reading here, you know that having babies, especially sons was “all that” for women in Old Testament times. A woman’s worth seemed to rest on her ability to produce a son. Especially since it was men who provided for women then. I’m guessing there were very {very, very, very} few high-profile careers then for women.


Women were as dependent on men for provision as children are dependent on parents today. So having a son not only gave women a sense of value, but also ensured security for her future.


Penny had “sons and daughters with Elkanah (1 Samuel 1:4) But Hannah’s “womb was closed” (1 Samuel 1:5)

So, just imagine it. Your husband having another woman. And the other woman seemed to be blessed by God. And it seems you. are. not.


If you read 1 Samuel 1:6 you will see Penny’s Puffed-up Pride Provoking Humble Hannah. Making fun of her barrenness, and making a sorrowful Hannah even more miserable.


Have you been there? Not only seemingly lacking something (baby, looks, talent, plans, job, friends, etc) but being made fun of because you are shorted in the very thing you long for? {THEN this story is for you!!!}


Hannah is a portrait of grace for many reasons. One being that she didn’t retaliate or “fight Penny” on her terms. Instead she seeks God for the desires of her heart. She waits upon the Lord. That is extraordinary, isn’t it?

“Not only was she the quintessential godly mother and wife, but in a spiritually cold generation she exemplified patience, prayerfulness, faith, meekness, submission, spiritual devotion and motherly love.” ~John MacArthur

Scripture does not give us any more of what I like to call “the backstory” of Hannah wrestling through her feelings and struggling to maintain faith, and I would guess that there, indeed, were days of struggle . . . There were likely days she wanted to hurl a potato at her rival {I’m only guessing, mind you, but she was after all, human!~and we all know how humans and perfection go together!}


Elkanah favored Hannah. He gave her twice as much as he gave Penny, and didn’t understand how Hannah could continue to be downcast from being without child. But I think that the destiny God had planned for Hannah to conceive one of the greatest prophets of the Old Testament kept her in the place of longing, for eventually she cries out to the Lord in the temple, promising God that if He grants her this desire, then she will give the child to the Lord.


And Eli witnesses her praying silently with her lips moving. And after accusing her of being drunk (because that was likely going on in the place of worship on a regular basis at the time under the corrupt leadership), is set straight by Hannah humbly sharing the reason she was there pleading with the Lord for a child, and the priest of God blesses her.


Shortly after, then, she becomes pregnant with Samuel. And after a few years of nurturing him, true to her word, Hannah takes Samuel to Jerusalem and offers him to God. And leaves him. With Eli.


The priest who had failed to restrain his sons (1 Samuel 3:13) and whose sons had desecrated the temple they were supposed to serve with their abominable behavior.


It was so bad, that God took their lives and the life of Eli. (1 Samuel 2:29-301 Samuel 3:131 Samuel 4:11)


Yes, Hannah left her only son with Eli. By faith.


We have the vantage point of seeing how God kept Samuel loyal to Himself and how God used him. No doubt, partly due to his mother’s ongoing influence. Hannah surely saw him regularly as they continued their practice of going to worship at the temple. (1 Samuel 2:19)

Hannah is a reminder that mothers are the makers of men and architects of the next generation. ~John MacArthur

The highlights we are privileged to glean from Hannah’s life are:


  • Her patient endurance of the waiting for the fulfillment of the deep longing of her heart and endurance of the bullying of ‘the other women’.
  • She looked to God for the fulfillment of her heart’s desire, not man, and prayed fervently to God.
  • She had a mind fixed on Heaven and things of eternity.
  • She loved her husband through all of the pain.
  • She was a true worshiper of God, exemplified in her response to God when He had given her the desire of her heart. (Please read her beautiful expression of worship in 1 Samuel 2:1-10)


In the lives of all the women we are studying, it is their faith in God and their relationship with Him that places them in the “extraordinary” category. They are all ordinary women, but believing and waiting on God and responding to Him with humility in their lives’ adverse circumstances lifted them from ordinary to extraordinary.

ο»Ώ

Do you have something in your life you’d desperately like to change? Let Hannah’s story encourage you to pray with faith and wait to see How God will bless and deliver you!


don't miss a thing
☞   SIGN UP TO receive THE LATEST news and updates  β˜œ
Thank you for subscribing!
By Kathy Schwanke 30 Jan, 2024
Our Human Story
By Kathy Schwanke 24 Dec, 2023
To conceive means "to seize; to take hold of"
By Kathy Schwanke 27 Sep, 2023
When the lights go out, we hear better and we grow closer.
Share by: