Lessons in Sacrifice: Hannah

by Megan Roegner


When I first found out that I was pregnant with Samuel, I had some reasons to fear that I might have a miscarriage. It took several days for the results of the bloodwork to come back to my doctor’s, and during that time, I was a wreck. I spent most of my time outside of work crying and Googling (which, of course, is the worst thing to do). I also spent a lot of time praying; when I think of my desperate prayers at that time, I am reminded of Hannah, mother of the original Samuel.

Hannah was barren and wanted a child more than anything else. Year after year, when Hannah traveled with her husband to Shiloh to worship and sacrifice, she prayed and prayed to conceive. She wept, she wouldn’t eat. Although our situations were not exactly the same, I think Hannah and I shared many of the same feelings: we were both desperate, wild with hope and fear for a child who had not been born yet. In those moments, Hannah and I would have given anything for that child.

After who knows how many years of desperate prayers, Hannah made a vow: “O Lord of hosts, if you indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and no razor shall touch his head” (1 Samuel 1:11). She prayed so intently that Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk. When he asked her to leave, Hannah responded, “I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord” (1 Samuel 1:15) (which I think is such a beautiful description of prayer). Soon after Hannah and her husband returned from Shiloh, she conceived and then gave birth to a son.

It’s a happy story, right? Hannah got what she wanted, her prayers had been answered. But, of course, she had made a vow to give her son to God. As soon as her Samuel was weaned (my study Bible estimates this to have probably been around the age of three), she took him back to Shiloh and left him with Eli to be raised as a priest.

It’s paradoxical. To get what she most desperately wants, Hannah promises to give it up. I can’t say I’d do the same. I have a feeling that if I were in Hannah’s position, I would be finding ways to logic myself out of that vow pretty darn quick. However, although Hannah’s situation is extreme, I think it is illustrative of the challenge Christian parents face. We work hard to provide for our children, we carefully ponder every decision about how to raise them, we kiss their boo-boos, we rock them back to sleep at night, but in the end, as Christians, we must put their lives entirely in God’s hands. How many of us sacrifice control as trustingly and worshipfully as Hannah? When she leaves Samuel at Shiloh, she does not regret her vow, nor does she ask God to take it away, rather she exclaims, “My heart exults in the Lord; my strength is exalted in the Lord. My mouth derides my enemies, because I rejoice in your salvation” (1 Samuel 2:1).

Just like Ruth, Hannah is another parent whose story is a shadow of the sacrificial love God shows us through the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The paradox exists in Jesus’ story as well. God’s law requires perfection from his children, so He sacrificed His perfect Child. Also like Ruth, Hannah’s story shows us that when we trust God, the return is much greater than the investment. God had great plans for Hannah’s Samuel, who anointed and guided the first kings of Israel. I pray that God’s will be done in my Samuel’s life and that God gives me the courage to place my son’s life entirely in His gracious hands.