Outside of His Love?

Imagine...

An interview with the Hannah of 1 Samuel 1...

On a very personal level Hannah tell us how it feels to be barren?”

Answer: “I feel so useless. I have failed Elkanah. What comes so naturally to everyone else does not come to me at all. All my friends started having children and soon I was the only one left, I was not a part of their world anymore. They were awkward around me. Each month my husband looked at me with anxious expectancy and I had to shake my head. Eventually he took another wife. I cried myself to sleep that first night. Even though Elkanah was kind and loving towards me things were never the same. Soon Peninnah gave birth to a child, underlining the fact that I and not my husband had been the problem all along. And I thought that I had been unhappy until then—that was the beginning of the real agony for me! Peninnah has a thousand ways of telling me in looks, intonation and private conversations which I am mean to overhear, that I am not wanted. I am a stranger, outsider, even enemy in my own home. All I really have to hang onto is God, and yet I often wonder…why has God made me barren? Is this a punishment for some sin of mine? Does He not consider me worthy to be a part of the covenant people, to continue the blessing? Am I outside of His love?”