"In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly." 1 Samuel 1:10
Whenever I get sick, I always think my body is trying to tell me something. As my husband and I have been putting in many hours for our home projects to renovate our house, keeping up with our normal schedules and responsibilities, and still trying to have a social life–we both ended up sick.
When he was sick (before I was) I was quick to tell him how obvious it was that the reason he was sick was because he was doing too much.
Then, I got a migraine and it stuck around for days. I was so frustrated, but realized my body was also trying to tell me something.
Similarly, I think our spiritual health is often communicating with us.
I think our spirits know when something is up, and just like our bodies get tired, worn out, and sick when we aren't paying attention, so do our spirits.
This passage is one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible. (It definitely shows up in my upcoming book!) One of the reasons I love it is because of what it teaches us about prayer.
Have you ever been told you're sensitive, emotional, or too much? I imagine all the emotions Hannah was feeling would have been categorized like that if she was in our day and age. But what astounds me again and again, is that Hannah takes those emotions, allows them to communicate to her, and then goes to God for transformation.
Her spiritual health was off, and it had a message it was trying to communicate with her:
you need to pray.
When she listened to that message, she brought her deep anguish, her frustration, her pain, and all of her concerns to the Lord "weeping bitterly." Later in this story, a priest assumed she was drunk because of how she prayed.
Her prayer was so honest, so uninhibited, that she appeared to be drunk.
Sometimes, I think the emotions we feel can feel like "too much" (especially if they've been labeled that way) but I think God uses our emotions to prompt us to pray. Just like when our bodies get sick they're trying to tell us to rest, I think the emotions we are experiencing are a prompting from the Spirit to turn to God and pray.
If you aren't sure where to start in your prayer life, start with what you're feeling–surrender and confess your emotions to God.
Maybe, He wants to use them to communicate something to you.
Journaling Prompts:
-Journal about what you are feeling today. What are those feelings telling you?
-How do you normally respond to your emotions? How could you respond differently?
-Write about one specific emotion you're experiencing and write out a prayer based on that emotion.
Action Step:
Respond in prayer this week to the emotions you're experiencing. Invite God to meet you in your emotions.
Worship:
Pray:
Thank you Jesus for coming and allowing us to meet with God. Help us to accept the invitation into communication with you this week. Holy Spirit–prompt us to pray in and through our emotions, willingly taking them to the throne of God to be met with transformation. Amen.