Hannah was one of two wives of an Israelite man. The other wife bore him children but Hannah did not. The childbearing wife taunted Hannah over this difference–unfruitfulness had both inheritance issues as well as the stigma of God withholding for sin problems. Life was not good even though her husband showed her favoritism.
Hannah spent years taking this to the Lᴏʀᴅ yet was childless as years passed. When you think it can’t get worse, Eli the priest saw her pouring out her heart to God at the God-place and accused her of being a drunken woman. She explains her distress and God answers her through his words. And then there was Tomorrow.
Do we reach that point in life when we feel that God isn’t there, that we don’t matter, that He has other things to do or maybe we aren’t worthy enough? How do we live when God’s timing is different than ours? This passage doesn’t say that God had forgotten Hannah but implies that in His due time or as elsewhere ‘in the fullness of time’ the Lᴏʀᴅ recognized the work to be done in Hannah.
In Hannah’s case, she has the child who was to become Samuel the prophet who would at the right time be in God’s place at His time to accomplish God’s work in the transition from Israel as a prophetic theocracy into the kingly monarchy.
Our challenge is to stay available in agreement, in relationship with the Lᴏʀᴅ, to see Him accomplish His desire in the fullness of His time. Amen (may it be so)