"woman with a broken heart"

Clickable link: Hannah's Vow

"I prayed for this boy, and since the LORD gave me what I asked Him for, I now give the boy to the LORD. For as long as he lives, he is given to the LORD."

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I am going to make, what is for me, a rather bold declaration: God is giving. May seem like a dumb obvious anticlimactic realization but it's extremely significant to me.

If I had something near an eternal want, a personal desire before the LORD, it would be to know beyond what I can know, that I have loved another and been loved by them in return. I don't trust my knowledge and I know my memory forsakes me. This love I desire would not be the worlds soiled definition but the sharp bright love of healing light from The Source of life.

We're often blinded to the reality that what we've asked for, prayed for, desired, sought out, and wept over - WE'VE RECEIVED. We ask God for things because we know that only He can really give them to us. What our hands alone can make doesn't long satisfy and never truly fills. All things are His. He gave Sarah and Abraham, Isaac. He gave Hannah, Samuel. To all who receive Him, He gives the right to be children of God (John 1:12). God gives, He's always giving.

And because what we receive is given to us from God, it's important to remember that it doesn't then become ours: it's still ever Gods. The desire to own, to possess for ourselves, runs deeper than we know. Belonging is knitted into our DNA.

I have wept, sobbed to the point of incoherency, in the darkness of nights past. I have bitterly wept and cried out "How much longer will You ignore me?! How much longer will You make me wait for my life to begin?!" Like gazing through a ethereal veil, is the truth that God answers prayer in ways too often unseen by us. I asked God to give me a man to love and He has. He's given me a man that I can't predict, can't tame, can't clasp, might extremely likely be unable to have - God's given me what I asked for in a sense, and in His wisdom forces me to give it back into His more capable, wise, strong hands.

I write this with the beginnings of tears because it's not easy. As Job, I again am brought down kneeling to the ground in helpless awe, crying out, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will leave this life. The LORD gives, and the LORD takes away. BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD." Job 1:21