Your Prayer Of Pouring Out Your Grief (1 Samuel 1:15-18)
"I am a woman who is deeply troubled." 1 Samuel 1:15
"I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief." 1 Samuel 1:16
These two verses stuck out to me today because I know there are many people who have or know others who are struggling in different ways. It could be you, a family member, neighbor, coworker, classmate or friend. It could be financial hurdles, health challenges, addictions, a weak or nonexistent faith, school work, difficult marriage, broken or struggling relationships, infertility, temptations, shame or guilt, hurts from the past, depression, anxiety, battles with weight or food, and on and on the list could go. We all have or know someone who we grieve for, with whom our hearts can at times become deeply troubled for.
In 1 Samuel 1, Hannah recognizes that she is not strong enough to carry the burden of her grief or the struggle any longer and that she truly wasn't meant to ever carry it around. Her time in prayer is such a great example of how the Lord welcomes us to bring our pain, to bring our raw unfiltered emotions before him and to pour them out and leave them with him. That is no easy task. Hannah spent years childless and tormented before she got a place where she finally poured it all out before the lord and left it with him in faith. Over the course of time she was given a child and she was able to keep him and enjoy him but for only a brief time. Just like her grief she was also willing to give the Lord her blessing and leave it with him. She had no guarantee of other children but it didn't matter. She was trusting the Lord with life and making him her source of joy and peace.
Rather than me write out a prayer today I want to encourage each of us to bring to the Lord our own "Hannah" type of prayer. Who in your life is weighed down by grief or deeply troubled? Who in your life are you deeply troubled for, is your heart burdened for? What is the source of your own personal grief that you need to surrender? I encourage you to go to the throne of grace and pour out your heart and concern to the lord. Keep going back and praying until, like Hannah, you are able to leave it with the lord and walk away without a downcast heart (1 Sam 1:18). Then you can simply lift up prayers of confidence in who you know the lord is and that he truly is a God who knows (1 Sam 2:3) and a God who is able to sustain us however he knows and sees fit. Remember, God always answers our prayers he just doesn't always answer them the way we want and when we want (kind of like a parent who doesn't always say yes but always seeks to do right and bless with what they know is best). When you leave your grief and trouble with the Lord be open to however God is ready to answer and don't give up hope if it feels it is taking a bit of time. God hasn't forgotten his timing is just not always ours but it is always perfect.
So be like Hannah and take the time today to lift up your prayers to the Lord and if able leave that grief with him and be filled with his peace and hope.
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