Joni Eareckson Tada, who has lived her whole adult life with paraplegia, wrote a monograph titled Making Sense of Suffering. In it, she describes her journey from confusion and doubt to acceptance and ministry. A key concept she shares is how to develop an eternal perspective.
Hannah’s story is instructive on this subject too. She was Elkanah's favorite but barren wife. The other wife, Peninnah, had a quiver full of children. While they ate the sacrificial meal, Peninnah mercilessly degraded Hannah about her failure to conceive.
When Hannah finished her meal, she went to the house of the Lord, stood, and wept bitterly. Her mouth moved but formed no words. Priest Eli mistook this for drunkenness and rebuked her. “I’m in deeply anguished prayer,” she replied. Then Eli reassured her.
Hannah conceived and birthed Samuel. Keeping her promise made in prayer, Hannah dedicated Samuel to God. After weaning him, she took him to the house of the Lord and left him in Eli’s care. Yearly, she took him new clothes.
Imagine Hannah’s anguish in consigning her only son, Samuel, to the care of Eli, whose own sons were perpetrating unspeakable evil in God’s house. But God made Samuel into one of Israel’s greatest men and rewarded Hannah with five more children.
Hannah’s story reminds us that deep sorrow and anguish may precede glorious gifts beyond our imagination. But receiving God’s blessing demands an eternal perspective that may include suffering. It can also require patient endurance and faithful obedience amid trouble and uncertainty. In her early years, Hannah could not have known her anguish would end in triumph.
When troubles and pain strike us, we often doubt God’s character. We may ask how God could allow this if He is both good and sovereign. But that question implies that God is accountable to us and not us to Him. It also discards the eternal perspective for the temporal.
Trust that your good and sovereign God has a providential plan of future blessings for you, even if the present seems dismal and hopeless.
Earl C Pomeroy is a retired engineer, chaplain, wilderness camping guide, and recreational poet. Writing poetry is how he processes things. He was formerly a member of the Word Weavers International chapter in Boone County KY, but he now lives in Forney, TX, with his daughter. He has self-published a book titled More Than Finest Gold, a paraphrase of Psalm 119 fashioned as an English language acrostic. For most of his married life, he and his wife, Ila Jean, maintained a ministry of rescuing women from the street in their home. They showed the women the love of Jesus and guided them to a new life in Christ. You can contact Earl at www.mountaintopcreatives.com.