October 12th

Hannah’s Prayer

            Hannah was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord, and wept bitterly. She made this vow: “O Lord of hosts, if only you will look on the misery of your servant, and remember me, and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a male child, then I will set him before you as a nazirite until the day of his death. He shall drink neither wine nor intoxicants, and no razor shall touch his head.”

                As she continued praying before the Lord, Eli observed her mouth.  Hannah was praying silently; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard; therefore Eli thought she was drunk. So Eli said to her, “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.”  But Hannah answered, “No, my lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord.  Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.”  Then Eli answered, “Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.”  And she said, “Let your servant find favor in your sight.” Then the woman went to her quarters, ate and drank with her husband, and her countenance was sad no longer.

1 Samuel 1:10-18

             

                Hannah wanted a child more than anything.  It was clear that God had made her barren and she had a rival that regularly tormented Hannah because of her condition.  Hannah sacrificed.  She prayed.  She cried.  She made promises to God about how she would dedicate her child to Holy Service if she had a son.

            I made promises to God when we first heard about autism.  Promises of faithfulness and being a better person.  Promises of how I would raise my son to serve the Lord if only he could be healthy.  Promises of anything that I could think of that might convince God to let the diagnosis be a false alarm.  I bargained with everything that I had to bargain with but there was no deal to be made…no conditions to be met…nothing that I could say or do or pledge that would change our new reality.  I was left with silence and the certainty that I had failed.  I remember that I hoped that we would be able to use therapy to help him reach developmental milestones and integrate into society.  Deep down I knew at that point, even five years before my resignation, that my hopes and dreams for my life in college ministry had just died and would have to be replaced by something else.

            Looking back, I can see that I was simply grasping for control in whatever form I could find it.  If I could convince God to change things, that would give me some control in my life.  If I could assign blame to myself, that would give me some control.  If I could come up with a therapy plan that would bring greater health, that would be control.  I wanted to find power somewhere because I felt so weak and so helpless and so useless.  I was supposed to be the dad.  I was supposed to be the one who protected the family.  I was supposed to be the one that kept all the darkness out and kept all the suffering away from my family.  I was supposed to be their shield and their protection…and I could not do it.

            I could not even point to what I thought I had done wrong, I just knew that my one and only son was in for a lifetime of suffering…and I had been powerless to stop it.  I had always been highly critical of myself before that; this cemented the label “failure” in my heart.  Now I expect things that I do to not work.  My wins all have asterisks.  My losses just serve to reinforce this identity that I have put on.  I no longer dream about what my life could look like in 5 or 10 years; instead, I’m just trying to make it through another day.

            In many ways, I am still back in that small house from 15 years ago.  I am still grasping for control.  And yet in trying to gain control of the narrative, I have given my son’s diagnosis the ability to define me and what is possible with my life.  I have said that if I can’t make the rules, I just won’t try…which is straight out of elementary school logic.

            It seems that it is time for me to grow and time for me to grow up.  It is time to stop hiding behind my excuses.  It is time to become okay with the fact that I am not in control of this life and it is especially time to let go of the lie that failure is all that I can aspire to.

            We grasp for control in lots of different ways: self-medicating, working too much, working too little, depression, anger, romantic relationships, shopping…the list goes on and on.  Sometimes control even looks like putting ourselves down so that we know that there is a reason that our beloved is afflicted.  Hannah knew she was not in control and cried out before the One who was and then went on her way, knowing she had done all she could and the matter was now in God’s hands.

            May we follow her lead.

A moment to reflect:

How have you grasped for control?