What Hannah Prayed (And What I Promised)

Some prayers are polite. Some prayers are pretty. Some prayers are the kind you say in church with your hands folded and your voice calm.

The prayer in 1 Samuel chapter 1 is none of those things.

Hannah is a woman who has been waiting and waiting for a child. She is — and I mean this with deep respect — falling apart in the temple. She’s praying so hard, with her lips moving but no sound coming out, that the priest Eli watches her and assumes she’s drunk. She’s not. She is desperate. And in that desperation, she makes a bargain with the Lord:

"O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life."

1 Samuel 1:11

When I first read this verse during one of our hard years — and we had a lot of hard years — I read past it. I knew the Hannah story the way most church kids know it: she prayed, God gave her Samuel, end of Sunday school lesson.

But somewhere in year three or four of waiting, I read it again and stopped cold.

Hannah was making a promise to the Lord, something He warns us about time and time again in Scripture.

"Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have sworn.' But I say to you, Do not take an oath at all... Let what you say be simply 'Yes' or 'No'; anything more than this comes from evil."

Matthew 5:33–37

"If a man vows a vow to the Lord, or swears an oath to bind himself by a pledge, he shall not break his word. He shall do according to all that proceeds out of his mouth."

Numbers 30:2

"But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your 'yes' be yes and your 'no' be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation."

James 5:12

"If you make a vow to the Lord your God, you shall not delay fulfilling it... You shall be careful to do what has passed your lips, for you have voluntarily vowed to the Lord your God what you have promised with your mouth."

Deuteronomy 23:21–23

"It is a snare to say rashly, 'It is holy,' and to reflect only after making vows."

Proverbs 20:25

"When you vow a vow to God, do not delay paying it, for he has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you vow. It is better that you should not vow than that you should vow and not pay. Let not your mouth lead you into sin, and do not say before the messenger that it was a mistake. Why should God be angry at your voice and destroy the work of your hands?"

Ecclesiastes 5:4–6

And those are only a few of the verses in regards to being a promise maker in Scripture. He makes promises to His children all the time but doesn’t ask for it in return. He simply asks for worship.

So if the Lord warns us repeatedly about something in Scripture, or even just once to be clear, we have to take it very, very seriously.

Hannah, in all of her brokenness, humiliation, and defeat surrendered wholly whatever preconceived notions she had of parenthood and family and vowed to do this the Lord’s way. If you will give me a child, I will give that child back to you.

And I realized that was the mindset I needed to have about everything in my life. Whatever plans, dreams, realities I had imagined for myself, I had to let them go. Scripture tells us that if I delight myself in the Lord that he will give me the desires of my heart. In my experience, I was always told Girl, you’re going to be a mother. He’s going to give you the desires of your heart.

And you can insert anything a person is desiring in place of motherhood into that statement. People always emphasized the promise of the Lord to grant me the desires of my heart but failed to acknowledge the action steps to the promise being fulfilled. This promise from the Lord is conditional.

Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.

Psalm 37:3–5

Psalm 37:4 is bookended by “trust in the Lord, do good, dwell, befriend faithfulness, commit your way, trust in him (again), AND HE WILL ACT.”

I wanted all of these things I was by no means entitled to. Nobody has a right to be a parent. But I was so focused on the desires of my heart I was forgetting all of the action steps before the Lord will take action on my behalf.

So, the Lord put me in a season of testing. Situations in which I had to trust Him. Sometimes I thrived but very often I failed miserably. I had to learn what it actually meant to “do good” in the eyes of the Lord. Befriending faithfulness — actively cultivating loyalty, trustworthiness, and steadfastness as a constant companion in daily life — and that is still an ongoing struggle. Committing my ways — AKA surrendering control… It seemed like an impossible task was before me.

I would never be bold enough to say I’ve nailed every single one of these action steps over the years, but I will tell you the Lord has blessed my ongoing diligent pursuit. A pursuit that eventually morphed from having an objective of receiving a blessing to just falling in deeper love with the Creator of the Universe. Thus, a new prayer was formed.

Lord, if motherhood is still a part of your plan for me, I will train that child up in the way he or she should go. I will surrender my plans for him or her to you. But if it’s not your path for us, being Mrs. Norris and daughter of the Most High is everything in itself.

If you’ve never been in a position to pray a prayer like that knowing full well the weight of what you’re praying, then you can’t fully comprehend how terrifying it is. Not because you’re afraid of the Lord, but because you’re afraid of yourself. You know who you are. You know you’re flaky, bad at commitment, controlling, idealistic, and fail way more often than you succeed.

About eight years ago my husband and I made peace with accepting parenthood in whatever form it came to us. And about one year ago, we made peace with never being parents. Accepting that this life would be the two of us on our farm, serving the Lord and creating a space that would welcome those that needed to know Him. A lot happened between eight years ago and one year ago that had us pretty well tapped out.

And then the phone rang.

Two weeks later, we were parents to the most beautiful, precious, purpose-given gift. To see what Jesus has in store for her… She doesn’t even know what a thread she is in the overall tapestry of our story. She’s more concerned lately with convincing me that I need her help holding her bottle, FaceTime dates with her aunts, uncles, and cousins, and playing with her best friend the ceiling fan.

I cannot tell you how protective I am of my daughter. Most of Savannah’s story is not mine to tell — it belongs to her, and to the woman who carried her, and to the family that loves her from a distance. There are details about her birth, her arrival, her first weeks, her medical history, that will never appear on this website. Not because I’m hiding them. Because they are hers. They are her sacred story to know first and to share if she wants, when she’s ready.

But here’s what I can say.

I prayed a version of Hannah’s prayer that applied to my walk with the Lord, and the Lord answered it, and now I am doing my best to hold up my side of that prayer.

If you give me a child, I will trust her to you.

So I’m doing that. Not by being silent about adoption — but by being honest about it. Adoption is underrepresented in the conversation about how families are made. It’s misunderstood. It’s reduced to a heartwarming Christmas movie or, worse, a controversy. It is rarely shown for what it actually is, which is one of the most sacred and complicated and beautiful and hard things a family can walk through.

I want to write about it honestly. I want people who are considering adoption to feel less alone. I want birth families to feel honored. I want adoptive parents to feel seen. I want adopted kids — like our girl, someday, when she reads this — to know that their story is holy, that their existence in our family is the answer to a thirteen-year prayer, and that they were never a backup plan.

Adoption is not the consolation prize for the family I couldn’t have. Adoption is the family I was always going to have. I just didn’t know it yet.

So I’ll write about it the way I write about everything else here — gently, honestly, without using my daughter as a billboard, but without pretending she isn’t the entire reason I have a story to tell.

That’s the Hannah prayer, lived out. Lord, you gave her to me. I’m giving her back to you.

Every day, I’m giving her back to you.

So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, "Abba! Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Romans 8:12–17