Of a Mother's Day Just Past

I preached out of I Samuel 1 yesterday on Hannah's excess in her prayer of hope and song of vindication. This was all over a child she almost immediately gives up to Eli to serve at Shiloh. What I said was that the merely "fulfilling her body's purpose", female competition, or having a child-toy plaything were not enough for, although they may be objects of, the true desire she expresses. Men, in response to a similar if not the same desire, build kingdoms and fight wars for greater kingdoms. We have a pothos, a longing and we yearn as Hannah yearned. Alexander wept for there were no more worlds to conquer. Our songs of victory in conquest could be her song almost verbatim. Men build buildings, kingdoms, and systems. Women build people. We men punch out our spheres of government to hold the insults of futility at bay. Our vindication is that we live in a moment of peace that we have carved out and rest in. A woman breeds as a claim on that contentment. She has replaced herself, and then her husband and then, with more, she slaps her coming death in the face with a leaving more people of her will and making living their willful way into a future. This is true for believer and infidel. When, as with Hannah, the child or empire is lent to God, futility lies gasping on the field with its wind knocked out and a slight blush over the embarrassment.