Praying for Your Children: 6 Lessons from Hannah

Raising kids with special needs has taught me two big things:

1. I cannot do this alone, and

2. I need to hope for the best without expecting a specific outcome.

Neither one of these are intuitive for a mom like me, but I take great strength in the Old Testament (OT) story of Hannah. As told in 1 Samuel 1 and 2, Hannah was one of two wives of Elkanah.* At the start of this story, his other wife, Peninnah, already had a lot of kids, while Hannah was barren. Back in those days, being barren was considered a terrible misfortune and possibly even a punishment. Being barren meant there was no one to take care of you as you aged and you’d end up penniless and homeless if you outlived your husband. When the family would go to the temple in Shiloh to worship for Passover and the other major annual feasts, Peninnah would mercilessly mock Hannah for not having children. (Nice thing to do in the Lord’s house!) It got so bad that one year, Hannah was in such despair she would not eat. We find her on her knees in the temple begging God to give her a child – which she then promised to give back to God. She looked so crazy that Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk. The confusion was cleared up and he blessed her.

They went home, and God heard Hannah’s prayer. She conceived shortly after and kept the child with her until he was weaned (around age 3). Then she brought him back to Eli, the priest, so that he could be trained as one himself. Samuel, in turn, dedicated his life to the Lord. As for Hannah, she was later blessed with 5 more children and visited Samuel every year.

What can we moms learn from this mother of the Bible?

6 Lessons on Praying for Your Child

1. Pour the desires and anguish of your heart out to the Lord.

God knows what’s in your heart, true, but He wants to hear it from you. I know that many look upon the outpouring of problems and despair as “venting” or “shame”, but God can bear it. He already knew that Hannah was hurting but it sounds like until that day that she took to her knees in the temple, she had not truly shared her burden with Him. That act changed everything. When you pray for your children, be honest and pour out your anguish to the Lord. When my mother began to show the “ugly” part of vascular Alzheimer’s (paranoia, anger, delusions), my heart broke. I took it to God, over and over, in the same day and the Holy Spirit comforted me, over and over in that same day. The next day, I felt healing in my soul and a way to deal with the pain.

2. Take comfort in His Word.

If you read further in the story, you’ll see that Eli was *not* the best of priests, but even so, his prayer that the God of Israel grant Hannah’s request encouraged her. Eli was meant to be the representative of God on Earth and even though he had human failings, God still used him to lighten Hannah’s load. This was not Eli’s doing so much as it was God speaking through Eli, as we see Hannah go home and eat and “was no longer sad.” Today, we don’t need an Eli, we just need a Bible. I’ve been through a crazy number of challenges in the last 6 months and the only thing that has comforted me is hearing from God, through scripture: reading and memorizing it, holding it in my heart, scripturally based worship music and friends sharing scripture. The Bible is the God’s words of comfort for us.

3. Pray with conviction and leave the problem to God.

This is a hard one for me, because, as I’ve mentioned before, I’m a “fixer.” God can solve any problem, any at all, but again, He will solve it in a way that shows His glory. Hannah’s painful years of being barren made her subsequent pregnancies a way to glorify God – only He could change that path for her. And when we pray, we must not doubt. James writes this, about asking God for wisdom:

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways. – James 1:6-7

So pray for your children whatever is on your heart; pray for whatever you want for your children. Healing? Yes! Recovery? Yes! Salvation? Absolutely! Academic success, speech impediment gone, social behaviors fixed, no more OCD? YES!! And remember that:

4. God always answers the prayers of the faithful.

Ok, so let’s be real – Hannah suffered but in the end, she was lucky. You and I know it. Some of us will never get the answers we want, like Hannah did: no pregnancy, no healing, little recovery, still no speech, still poor social behaviors. It’s not that God won’t answer your prayer. He will one way or another – and that other way may not be what you want. It may not be the way you imagined. In fact, you may get what you want in a way you NEVER wanted and don’t think you can handle. Or, perhaps you are not prepared for it yet so you have to wait longer. We don’t know how many years Hannah suffered but it was enough to break her spirit. Or, this is not the road for you because God has prepared a different and ultimately better one for you. He will answer your prayers and He will give you the strength to accept that answer, even if the answer is “no.”

5. Surrender your children to the Lord.

This is a hard one for me, but the real truth is that, sooner or later, we ALL have to “give up” our kids in some way. Unless we homeschool, we give them up to the school system for hours a day. For kids who do not have special needs, we give them up when they are ready to live on their own or give them over to live with a spouse. For kids with special needs, we give them over to respite, care centers and finally group homes and other facilities when we are no longer able to care for them. Sooner or later, this will happen.

Why not just give your child over to the Lord now? Of course, you will still care for him but let God do the heavy lifting and stop worrying about the future so much. I did finally give up and offer my kids to God, about a year ago. I realized that I can’t do everything, I can’t fix everything and I can’t hold their future OR eternal destiny, but God? He’s already got it all mapped out. Like Hannah, I turn my children over to Him to watch over and protect all the days of their lives, even when I can’t.

6. Give your heart felt thanks to the Lord when your prayer is answered.

Samuel is very important. He is the last judge of Israel, a prophet, a priest, a counselor and a true man of God. There are 2 books of the Bible named after him, he was the prophet and advisor for Israel’s first two kings, Saul and David, and is mentioned in the list of OT heroes in Hebrews 11. Later, Hannah had other children too, but long before that she brought Samuel to the temple, which was not near her home. She dropped off her preschooler, not expecting to see him for months, and what did she do next?

She worshipped God. She publicly THANKED God for answering her prayers and giving her a child RIGHT when she had to give him up for good. And not just a tiny prayer, but a whole 10 verses, the length of a page. She sang this song of worship in Samuel 2:1-10, and after that the very next line is, “Then Elkanah and Hannah returned home to Ramah without Samuel.” Sound painful, and no doubt it was, but at the same time, I think Hannah, in her heart, knew that Samuel would be a great man of God and I think this blessed her and gave her joy even through her loss. Now that is a lesson ALL of us parents can learn from!

Final Thoughts

Hannah’s outpouring of her heart, her trust in the Lord, her dedication of her child and her song of praise are a lesson all parents can learn from, especially those of us raising kids with challenges, difficulties and special needs. However, I do NOT recommend Hannah’s method of making a deal with God. Pray for your children but do not offer something in return other than your thanks. Give your child to God out of your own free will and not in exchange for an answered prayer. Simply ask for your dreams and hopes for your child – that’s what He wants – and He will be faithful to answer.

Finally, when you pray, do so as the Bible instructs: without willful sin or worry in your heart, without anything against your neighbor, with an open heart and clear conscience after confessing and writing any wrongs that are now weighing on your soul.

Other scriptures about praying to God include 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Philippians 4:6-7, 1 John 5:14, Mark 11:24, Hebrews 4:16.

*After my studies, I’ve come to believe that having 2 or more wives was not in God’s plan for anyone, but people felt they knew best.