Being born a woman in Old Testament times, Hannah knows firsthand her disadvantage. As if this weren’t enough, she cannot have children. Insecurity, uncertainty, disappointment, and judgment are aspects of life that she juggles day after day. Yet Hannah looks beyond her situation to the One who holds and keeps her life.
God remembers her persistent dependence. And Hannah remembers the One to whom she owes thanks. Her song of thanksgiving expresses who God is and how God works in her life, despite her difficulties. Hannah’s song magnifies the Lord.
A physician once told me that we can magnify something or someone in two ways. First we can magnify something small to make it look big, such as when we look through a microscope to see microbes and viruses. The organisms look big when they are actually undetectable by the naked eye. The second approach to magnification occurs when we look at something seemingly small and see it for how magnificent it really is, such as looking at the moon, planets, and stars through a telescope. We realize that not only are they bigger than they appear but that we can never come to terms with their size, greatness, and beauty.
Hannah’s expression of God’s reversals in her hymn of thanksgiving reminds us that our God is much greater than our problems. She looked to God and persisted in the knowledge that no situation lies beyond God’s intervention and answers.