Text: “But to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the LORD had closed her womb” (1 Samuel 1:5, ESV).

Bottom line up front: Very often the Lord uses most significantly those whom He first places in the crucible of suffering.

Historical context: 1500s B.C. The Lord was about to bring about the last of the Old Testament judges, Samuel. But before Samuel’s birth, we get the massively important story of his mother, Hannah. Hannah was loved by her husband, Elkanah. Scripture attests that Elkanah had two wives, but he especially loved Hannah, so much in fact that “he gave her a double portion” of the sacrifices (1 Samuel 1:5).

Hannah’s barrenness: But despite Elkanah’s love for Hannah, the Lord closed Hannah’s womb for a season. She could not bear a child. Peninnah, the other wife, was able to conceive and bear children. But Hannah? No. Why? The Lord had closed her womb (1 Samuel 1:5, 6). It seems safe to say that the Lord was using Hannah’s present circumstances of suffering to bring about providential blessing.

Hannah’s response: She wept; she fasted (1 Samuel 1:7-8). She pleaded with the Lord (1 Samuel 1:11). She implored God for a son and the Lord answered. Verses 19-20 of chapter are so tender: “They rose early in the morning and worshiped before the LORD; then they went back to their house at Ramah. And Elkanah knew Hannah his wife, and the LORD remembered her. And in due time Hannah conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Samuel, for she said, “I have asked for him from the LORD” (1 Samuel 1:19-20, ESV).

Encouragement/takeaway: Very often the Lord uses most significantly those whom He first places in the crucible of suffering. I don’t think that Hannah fully understood her circumstances of barrenness, at least not initially. Scripture is clear that she wept bitterly, that she fasted, that she appeared nearly out of her mind with grief. But she trusted the Lord. She petitioned the Lord. She persevered. She endured in the faith. And yet, for a season, the crucible of suffering remained for her. But the Lord was not wasting her suffering. He was using it to bring about the birth of one who would be used even mightier still for the Lord. God’s ordaining of suffering for His people, though we might not fully grasp it at the time, is not random; it is ordained by the Hands of the Lord, who knows our beginning and our end.