Birthing Babies
Hannah was barren.
That wasn’t cricket in the days of yore when producing a male heir was expected, wanted, tried, prayed for, and could become a reason for outcast. Daughters were not popular, yet daughters were needed to mate with males to produce more males. And in those days, there were no secrets to success on how to produce male babies.
Yet, Elkanah favored his barren wife while all the rest of his wives were right on as producers of offspring sufficient to take care of the family and the future. He gifted his wives with many things called portions, which means dowry or shares of an inheritance, not slices of pizza. But then we hear about Hannah, who he seemed to love more than all his other wives, ((if he even loved the others at all). In the book of Samuel we read, “but to Hannah he gave a double portion, because he loved her, though the Lord had closed her womb.” And to boot, one of the other wives was nasty about it, teasing her, provoking her, criticizing her and you know — yeh yeh yeh kind of sloppy abuse. So much so, that Hannah feared going up to the house of the Lord, which I gather was the temple. The non-barren wife would nag and laugh and tease and treat her with disrespect. So, Hannah spent most of her time weeping in grief that she could not serve her master with a male child, or, it seemed, any kind of child. She had no appetite and was just about to give up life even though Elkanah flowered her with gifts and confessed he loved her more than ten sons. He was trying but he was unable to solve the problem.
Not giving up, Hannah had one more try at getting pregnant. After a meal at Shiloh, she rose and presented herself in the Temple before the Lord. She wept profusely and she mumbled words from her lips which no one could hear. She promised the Lord to allow her to have a male child, and he would not be sorry. She would make sure he wouldn’t drink wine nor intoxicants, and no razor would touch his head - that meant he would have a lot of long hair, which I guess would be twisted and controlled like some Arabs and Jews do today. Eli, a High Priest of Shiloh, was watching and was horrified that this woman seemed drunk because she was moving her lips, but nothing was coming out. Typical. Making judgement before finding out the truth. He told her to stop “making a drunken spectacle of yourself.” Put away your wine. I guess in those days wine was the primary liquid people could drink because water was not purified, and there were no soda pops like Coke Cola and i don’t know if they knew about squeezing oranges into juice.
But Hannah, through her tears, which she surely had in her eyes, told Eli, “I am a woman deeply troubled. I’ve been pouring out my soul before the Lord.” In other words, life hurts as it often does to so many of us. She asked that he not judge her because she is not worthless as a woman. And Eli got the point and told her to “Go in peace” and may the God of Israel give her for what she has prayed. For some reason, she still had faith, and when she returned to her husband, she sat at the table and ate and drank without sadness.
In an interesting way, the pair rose early in the morning and worshiped the Lord then went back to their house at Ramah and it was written: “Elkanah knew his wife Hannah and the Lord remembered her.” I often read this way of saying had sex. He “knew” his wife. I’m sure that was not his first attempt to have a child. That’s how they knew she was barren. And we read that the Lord was alert and remembered her plea in the temple. This time, she conceived and bore a son who was named Samuel. which meant “I have asked him of the Lord.” Hannah had trusted prayer because she knew “there was no Holy One like the Lord. No Rock like our God for he does not abandon us to the grave for in his right hand are pleasures for evermore.” (Psalm 16)
Having babies is a miracle. But our purposes and errors and joys get mixed up when two people get together to produce a child who must survive in this often abusive and unfair world. Can we afford it? Can we be good parents? Do we even know how to pin a diaper or boil milk or make cookies? Is the spouse part of the picture? and how many heirs has one already created even when they cannot afford to properly take care of one child. When I see a family of ten children, I cringe but also have some envy. Most have a special happiness that those of us who have only two or three children might never know. Kinship in a bunch must teach equality and how to help each other, and, if nothing else, learning to share, even that old hand me down trick that the newer members don’t always like. And when there are twins or triplets, that’s an adventure of being alike, or of breaking away from being a mirror of each other. But giving birth no matter if it’s one, two or a dozen, is a miracle.
When I had my first child, it was the old-fashioned knock the mother out, and wake up, boom there’s a baby. I swore I’d never do that again. And for the next two, which back in the ‘60ties, was not chic, I insisted on being awake and knowing what was going on. If I was birthing babies, I wanted to know what was going on. And there is nothing so joyful if not painful (no man will ever know that) than seeing that child all messy and reddish, breathing the first breath of air, and giving out a yell, as if they carry that yell the mother makes as she pushed out that baby. And somewhere in the environment the dad is jumping up and down with joy and wondering what’s next. Is there a chart of how to be great parents, or does God fill our hearts and souls in such a way that it is instinct?
In my day, we didn’t do baby having or baby raising classes. Dr. Spock was a popular book, but behind it all was a mother’s instinct and a father’s curiosity. And somehow, babies become toddlers and one day they succeed or fail but, in our hands, it’s up to us and trusting that we are doing what God expects a mom or a dad to do. I must say, there are few who do that. Too many divorces. Too many one-night stands. Too many disappearing parents. Too many grandparents raising the children of their children. in some countries, too many youngsters being kidnapped and abused as they learn to be warriors. Parents often put other things high on the priority list. And now, in this last decade or so, too many youths are in prison, possessing guns and knives, living off drugs, and shooting anything that moves. We need sons and daughters who care about the community, military, police, sheriffs, coaches, priests, people who can step in where a parent may have stepped out and disappeared. Politicians only care about self and glory, sadly, and in our country, there is still too much racism and greed.
I wonder what God thinks about us today as parents. Do we still know kindness, generosity, laughter, sharing, caring? We seem to be out of control humans who want to live as if we never left our teens, learned nothing from 9-11 or even Hiroshima or Vietnam, enemies today and tomorrow as we need each other. All people on earth do dwell, goes the song. We need to have friends from every nation. Too many of us use television and Instagram and Facebook etc. to teach our children, so that mom and dad can stay glued to sports on TV or try to force their beliefs and ideas of the past while not creating new solutions about how we can all live in a better way still in the hands of the great God who made us all.
~ Rev
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audrey@audreytaylorgonzalez.com
www.audreytaylorgonzalez.com
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