Twelve Extraordinary Women: How God Shaped Women of the Bible, and What He Wants to Do With You by John MacArthur

Author:John MacArthur
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Religion, Christian Life, Women's Issues, Biblical Biography
ISBN: 9781400280285
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2005-02-14T22:00:00+00:00

But Hannah's marriage, though marred by tensions, was solid. Elkanah obviously loved Hannah with a sincere affection, and he knew her love for him was reciprocal. In fact, he tried to comfort her by tenderly reminding her of his love for her: "Hannah, why do you weep? Why do you not eat? And why is your heart grieved? Am I not better to you than ten sons?" (v. 8 NKJV). This plea did help, at least for the moment, because Hannah immediately arose and ate, then went to the tabernacle (v. 9).

Hannah's love for her husband is the first key to understanding her profound influence as a mother. Contrary to popular opinion, the most important characteristic of a godly mother is not her relationship with her children. It is her love for her husband. The love between husband and wife is the real key to a thriving family. A healthy home environment cannot be built exclusively on the parents' love for their children. The properly situated family has marriage at the center; families shouldn't revolve around the children.

Furthermore, all parents need to heed this lesson: what you communicate to your children through your marital relationship will stay with them for the rest of their lives. By watching how mother and father treat one another, they will learn the most fundamental lessons of life-love, self-sacrifice, integrity, virtue, sin, sympathy, compassion, understanding, and forgiveness. Whatever you teach them about those things, right or wrong, is planted deep within their hearts.

That emphasis on the centrality of marriage was very evident between Elkanah and Hannah. With all their domestic issues, they nonetheless had a healthy marriage and an abiding love for one another. Their inability to have children together was like an open wound. But it was an experience that drew out of Elkanah tender expressions of love for his wife. And even in a home environment with a second wife and multiple children-a chaos created by the folly of Elkanah's bigamy and made even more dysfunctional by Peninnah's ill temperament-Hannah and Elkanah clearly loved one another deeply.

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