Rejoicing
| Then Hannah prayed and said: "My heart rejoices in the LORD; in the LORD my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance. (1Samuel2:1) |
It's quite something to contemplate leaving a 4 year-old in the the hands of a priest who hasn't done such a great job with his own sons...
Later in this chapter we will read that Elkanah goes home to Ramah, implying that Hannah stays a while to settle Samuel and then she also heads home and we read that: "Each year his mother made him a little robe and took it to him when she went up with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice."
Doesn't that sentence grab your heart? A loving mother making a little robe for her boy in the tabernacle...
But how does Hannah feel about all this?
She is rejoicing!
She utters one of the Old Testament's most beautiful songs of praise and this song is the prototype of Mary's Magnificat.
How can she do this?
How can she rejoice at being parted from her son?
Is she a cold mother?
No, but she has realised that God loves Samuel even more than she does. She knows that God is doing something special and that God's "best way" doesn't always lead through the most comfortable terrain.
Her beautiful song is a celebration of how God brings about turnarounds and how He reverses the fortunes of the humble-downtrodden and the arrogant-wealthy. It is a story of justice and deliverance. It's a story of grace shown to the helpless and a transforming of destinies.
Hannah's road is not easy - would she have liked to keep Samuel?? Certainly, but she wanted God's plan even more. With the firm belief that God is the God of the turnaround - she trusts His plan...
And mysteriously (mischievously even) God's plan is fulfilled.
(Read Hannah's whole song here below...)
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1 Then Hannah prayed and said:
"My heart rejoices in the LORD;
in the LORD my horn is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
for I delight in your deliverance.
2 "There is no one holy like the LORD;
there is no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
3 "Do not keep talking so proudly
or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the LORD is a God who knows,
and by him deeds are weighed.
4 "The bows of the warriors are broken,
but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
5 Those who were full hire themselves out for food,
but those who were hungry hunger no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children,
but she who has had many sons pines away.
6 "The LORD brings death and makes alive;
he brings down to the grave and raises up.
7 The LORD sends poverty and wealth;
he humbles and he exalts.
8 He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
and has them inherit a throne of honor.
"For the foundations of the earth are the LORD's;
upon them he has set the world.
9 He will guard the feet of his saints,
but the wicked will be silenced in darkness.
"It is not by strength that one prevails;
10 those who oppose the LORD will be shattered.
He will thunder against them from heaven;
the LORD will judge the ends of the earth.
"He will give strength to his king
and exalt the horn of his anointed."
