Letting Go

Letting Go

Hannah

Read: 1 Samuel 1:21-28

May and June are months when many mothers experience a bittersweet happiness. Watching our children graduate from high school or college fills us with pride and joy. At the same time, it forces us to acknowledge that our adult children are ready to make their own lives. Even though we knew this day would come, it is hard to let go of our children after years of loving, protecting, and nurturing them. Suddenly, eighteen or twenty-one years doesn’t seem like enough time for childhood.

That day of letting go came much sooner for Hannah. When God allowed her to give birth to a son, she must have been wild with joy. At last, she had what she had desired for so many years. Still, Hannah’s happiness in motherhood was mixed with pain. She had vowed to dedicate her son for full-time service to God, so Hannah had only a few years to devote herself to Samuel’s care and training. She probably weaned Samuel at around age three, and then took him to the Tabernacle to live there permanently. Hannah rejoiced in the opportunity to give her son back to the One who had given him to her, but her mother’s heart must have broken a little as she returned home without him.

Hannah’s faith and devotion to God enabled her to give up what she wanted most. This painful lesson comes to all of us sooner or later. Whenever we hold on to something too tightly, it can become an idol in our lives. God may ask us to give up material possessions, a relationship, or a job. We can be sure that he always has a reason, just as Hannah knew when her son became one of Israel’s great leaders. If we hold on to things loosely in this earthly life, it won’t be so painful when we have to let go.

Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you first gave us!

1 Chronicles 29:14