Sing Hannah’s Song Through Lament

“As she continued praying before the LORD, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman. And Eli said to her, ‘How long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away from you.’ But Hannah answered, ‘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.’”
1 Samuel 1:12-16, ESV

Hannah didn’t stop pouring out her tears or making her request before the Lord, but she continued praying. I don’t know what words formed on her mouth in those moments, but I can’t wait to ask her. It is clear though, as we see Eli’s response, that whatever she was saying was coming out in a torrent of emotions. So much so that she appeared drunk. And yet her response to Eli’s assumption was, “No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit…I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:15). We can bring our tears and our requests to the Lord, but we must go a step further and pour out our souls to our God who is faithful to respond in our places of deep ache and distress. We must invite God into the places exposed by our tears that leave our hearts aching for more. When we stop at bringing our desires before the Lord, we miss discovering what He desires.

I had so many questions of pain and ache when we discovered our first daughter would not live. Would God heal her? Is it His will that He would heal her? And then after our first daughter passed away, when we found out our second daughter would not live, there were questions of, Will we have another child? Can we have another child? These questions hit at the deepest recesses of my heart and revealed what was really there. I had to learn to bring my pain to Jesus in a season when it felt like everything I had known or thought I knew about God had been ripped apart. I had to learn, like Hannah, to lament.

What is lament? Lament is pouring out our distress, our pain, our very souls with a posture towards the Lord—truly desiring His response, even when we can feel met with silence. When we complain, we often have already reached conclusions about our pain and our hearts are not open to how God may want to meet us in our pain. Lament is a posture we have towards God, it is a willingness to say, “God You say You are our healer, but what does that mean when You don’t heal?” and, “God, You say You are good, I know You are good, but what I’m experiencing doesn’t feel good.”

C.S Lewis wrote in his book A Grief Observed, in His own wrestling with God, “Not that I am (I think) in much danger of ceasing to believe in God. The real danger is of coming to believe such dreadful things about Him. The conclusion I dread is not ‘So there’s no God after all’ but ‘So this is what God is really like. Deceive yourself no longer.’”

This is a scary place to be, and it’s the place I was in after the loss of my second daughter. God had not shown up like I thought He would and I was afraid to truly wrestle with Him and understand how He works. What would I find? Would my faith come crashing down? It took courage to enter into a season of lament, but I’m glad I did—for I began to discover that when you are willing to wrestle with God, you will find that He actually isn’t who you thought He was, He’s better. This is how lament concluded for me, and this is how God meets Hannah in her pain and moves her heart to hold onto the promise that her prayer for a child that she would get to see serve in the house of the Lord would be answered. And this is how God will meet us in our pain, moving our hearts to hold onto the promise that He has given us, the Savior, Jesus who has come to restore, redeem and make new everything broken in our lives. We can taste it now, but our future hope and promise is of the day when we see it in full (I Cor. 13:12; Rev. 21:5; Isaiah 61:3).

Lord, I confess that I have not brought my whole self before You in the midst of my deep pain. I have been fearful of Your response, not believing the fullness of Your goodness and love to me in the midst of my losses. So today, I bring my desires before You and I ask that you would reveal to me what the unmet longings of my heart reveal about my view of You, and show me who You really are. God, help me to see and know and believe more deeply that You are so much better, so much greater than I could have even imagined. Teach me how to pour out my soul to You and give me a listening heart to hear how You will respond and re- shape how I know and view You. Thank you, Jesus, in advance for how You hear my cries and that You are doing a work in my life even when I don’t feel or see it.

Hi! I’m Lindsey. I live in Orlando, Florida with my stud of a husband Kevin. We have 3 incredible children, Sophie and Dasah who now live with Jesus and Jaden who came into our lives through adoption. We have a very energetic golden retriever and love living in the sunshine state. I get to spend my days loving on my son, investing my life in college students here through a non-profit organization we’re a part of and when I have time, writing on my blog about the hope that doesn’t disappoint!

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