What Are You Seeing? - Five Questions God Uses to Heal Your Heart (After Heartbreak & Disappointment)

“So in the course of time Hannah became pregnant and gave birth to a son. She named him Samuel, saying, ‘Because I asked the LORD for him.’” (1 Samuel 1:20, NIV)

Anyone who knows me well can tell you my favorite Bible story without hesitation: Hannah. Not because our lives look the same, but because I know what it’s like to carry a deeply personal desire for a long time—and to keep carrying it, year after year, even when nothing seems to change.

I also know what it’s like to be surrounded by people who seem to have the very thing you want but don’t. Hannah lived that reality with Peninnah, who had children while she remained childless. Every year, Hannah showed up to worship carrying both her longing and her disappointment. And every year, it would have been easy for her to look at her life and decide what it meant—about herself, about her future, or about God. That’s what heartbreak and disappointment do. They don’t just hurt, they force interpretation. We don’t only ask, What happened? We ask, What does this mean?

Heartbreak narrows our perspective. Disappointment trains us to see only the unmet desire and delay. Pain whispers: This is God withholding. This is you failing. This is your story coming to an end. When we’re hurting, our perspective often shrinks to what we can see right now, and not the possibilities that lie ahead.

But healing invites a wider perspective. It reminds us that delay is not the same as denial. A closed door is not always a closed door forever. Sometimes what feels like loss is actually protection. Sometimes what feels like an ending is redirection. Sometimes what feels like stagnation is God growing us. And sometimes what feels like denial is a setup for something bigger.

Hannah’s story in 1 Samuel 1–2 shows us how limited our perspective can be. For years, all she could see was her ache. She couldn’t see timing, purpose, or the larger story God was writing. But Scripture tells us that “in the course of time” she gave birth to a son. Samuel could not be born too early, and he could not be born too late. God needed Samuel in a specific moment in history for a specific purpose. Hannah saw delay. God saw design. Hannah’s heartbreak was preparation in His hands.

You won’t always know what God is doing in the moment. But you can know that He is doing something. “In the course of time” reminds us that God works with intention and that only He knows how things will end.

Do the Work: Today, practice widening your perspective. When you catch yourself thinking, This is a total loss, pause and let yourself grieve what you’ve lost. Don’t rush past the pain or try to explain it away. Then, when you’re ready, gently ask yourself: Could God be protecting me, redirecting me, growing me, or preparing something I can’t see yet? You don’t have to understand the whole story to trust the Author.

Pray: God, help me see my life the way You see it. When my perspective narrows to only what hurts, remind me that You are still at work. Teach me to trust Your timing, Your purposes, and Your bigger story even when I can’t see it yet. Amen.