“Where is your family?”
My blond-headed nephew’s three-year-old voice cut sharp and
innocent. It was the same question a harried wedding photographer had shouted
out to me three days before on the lawn of the pristine church where she was
herding my parents, siblings, and the eleven grandchildren into family bunches
around my youngest sister, the glowing bride. I think I just shook my head, but maybe I mumbled, “I don’t
have one.” And then I took a few
deep water bottle swigs—an excuse to close my eyes just long enough for the
stinging tears to dissipate before they fell and brought any dark tinge onto my
dear sister’s day. My sister who is sixteen years younger than me.
But my nephew, in his car seat, waiting with me for his mom
to come back out of the store, is too little to be hurt by seeing my
tears. And so he saw them.
In truth, I don’t really have power over tears. I was given grace on the lawn, that’s
why they dissipated. The
photographer backpedaled when she realized she’d probably called out the most
painful question she could have (not just to me, but in front of the thirty
onlookers watching the picture process). She rushed to say something about the
entire group being my family and herded me to stand next to the bride, right in
the middle of the shot.
It was one of those terribly beautiful days where you get to
lay down your heart at the feet of Jesus, whisper that you trust Him, and
venture out to rejoice that another person is receiving the thing you’ve always
asked for. Not too long afterward, I turned forty.
That same sister is now pregnant with their second child,
and I am skipping church on Mother’s Day. Not because I’m ashamed or there’s
anything wrong with tears; I’m just unwilling this year to be exposed again by
them in front of the congregation. The church is too large to know everyone,
and why should the semi-strangers in my row see my most intimate wound? In
front of God, however, I’m always ready to split my heart open—because He is
safe, and kind, and can do something about it—so I watch the service online and
He speaks.
The preacher’s sweet honoring of women, speaking of Ruth and
Mary and Rachel, turns profoundly insightful when he gets to Hannah. Hannah
somehow knew she was not simply longing for the fulfillment of her personal
womanly desire for children—she was interceding for a birth that would pivot
the entire nation of God and usher in of the age of kings. Her son, the last
judge of Israel, was to anoint the great King David, initiating the messianic
line that will culminate in the perfect Man ruling a perfect world throughout
the perfect years of eternity. Perhaps she didn’t know these details, but her
heart felt them—this desire, this need of a son, was not just for her own sake.
It was for the whole world’s. It was that important.
Am I overstepping my place (after all, I am simply one among
tens of thousands) to say that my longing feels like this? Are you? To us it
seems less like a whine to get the dessert we want tonight, and more like an
epic battle that determines destinies. These woman-arms are wrestling, using
power beyond their natural ability, to bring the glory of God onto visible
earth. I feel like Jacob, wrestling God over what God had already promised.
My father liked to hide a penny in his fist and let my
sister and I try to pry his fingers open to get it. In the end we never had the
strength, but he always gave the penny. Those struggles were delightful but
didn’t ruffle my heart—even at the age of four I knew a penny would buy me
nothing. I simply loved wrestling his fingers. But some wrestles aren’t for
nothing, nor for the simple joy of touch. They are for something very important. Something beyond ourselves.
It strikes me that the intensity of Hannah’s pain was
commensurate with the expansive destiny of the son she prayed for. Are the most
difficult, hard-fought, pain-endured areas of our lives that way because they
will be the most fruitful, eternal, and life-expanding gifts to not only
ourselves but the whole kingdom of God? We aren’t wrestling for a penny with no
buying power. Our hearts are troubled, wincing, and calling on every reserve of
strength to win this—because we are wrestling for the glory of the glorious God
to outshine all the nay-saying, doubting, fear-mongering, destiny-surrendering
words the world has surrounded our lives with.
My husband may not be the next president nor my sons usher
in the return of the King, but that marriage and those births will be epic
releases of the glory of God and explosive proclamations of His faithful
nature. You and I may not be Hannah, yet we are. Not only because every baby is
worth the whole world, but because the real God’s real glory is worth spending
a life on.
Don’t let go of His promises, whatever they may be, and
don’t lay down your birthright out of hopelessness. When you must weep, weep
with the power of a queen appealing to her king, of a Hannah interceding for
her messiah’s birthline. In the end, His promises and your birthright are more
about Him than you. The birth of your ‘Samuel’ will lift Jesus’ name high, for
every promise kept by God is a display of His true nature. It is that
important.
