Sorrow Turned to Song, with Becca Ellis.

Sorrow Turned to Song, with Becca Ellis. Series: Beloved. Belonging. Delightful. A Spacious Christianity, First Presbyterian Church of Bend, Oregon. Scripture: 1 Samuel 1-3.

Ever felt unseen or unheard? Join us this Sunday as we explore a powerful story about longing, hope, and being truly understood. Whether online or in-person, discover how your deepest struggles matter and you’re never alone.

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At First Presbyterian, you will meet people at many different places theologically and spiritually. And we love it that way. We want to be a place where our diversity brings us together and where conversation takes us all deeper in our understanding of God.

We call this kind of faith “Spacious Christianity.” We don’t ask anyone to sign creeds or statements of belief. The life of faith is about a way of being in the world and a faith that shows itself in love.

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Keywords:

Infertility, longing, grief, Hannah’s story, prayer, loneliness, miscarriage, emotional pain, community, presence, healing, unheard, faith, resilience, support, presbyterian, church, online worship, bend, oregon

Featuring:

Rev. Dr. Steven Koski, Rev. Sharon Edwards, Becca Ellis, Brave of Heart, Guests

Transcript

Unknown: 0:20

Announcer, welcome to worship At First Presbyterian we, at First Presbyterian, practice a spacious Christianity, which means no matter where you are in your faith journey, you belong and there is space for you at the table, there is space for your doubts and questions. We believe doubts and questions are a gift that invite us into deeper conversations and a more authentic faith. We believe diversity is a strength. Every story is sacred and everybody matters. We do our best to live the spacious and radical love of Jesus so that all might have a chance to flourish in this world. We are so glad to connect with you in this way. We would also love to worship with you in person if you're ever in the neighborhood on Sunday mornings at 830, or 10am and never hesitate to reach out to us to learn more about us or how we might support You. I hope you enjoy this worship service. Welcome you. Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder, consider all the works thy hands have made, I see the stars. I hear the rolling thunder Thy power throughout the universe display when through the forest. Glades I wander and hear the birds sing sweetly when I look down from lofty mountain grandeur and see the blue and feel the gentles. Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to Thee, How Great Thou Art, How great thou Art. Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to Thee. When Christ shall come, we shall shout of acclamation and lead me home with joy should fill my heart, then I shall go with humble adoration and then proclaim My God, How great thou Art. Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee, How Great Thou Art, How great thou Art. Then sings my soul, my Savior, God, to Thee. How sorrow turned to song, a retelling of the story of Hannah from First Samuel, chapters one to three from the book of belonging Hannah. My Hannah. Why do you weep? Why won't you eat? Why is your heart sad? You have me? Isn't that? Better than 10 babies. Hannah sat at the Thanksgiving feast as the words of her husband, Elkanah echoed in her head and made her chest tight. She wanted a baby for so long that the yearning felt like a part of her, like it lived in her skin. But as time went by and her womb stayed empty. She grew silent and still bottling up her feelings inside. Why do you weep? Why won't you eat? I'm so sad and so angry, she finally blurted out to Penina, the woman was elkanahs other wife, so she just laughed and taunted Hannah. So dramatic, I'm so sad and so angry. Hannah told Elkanah, he just scooped extra food onto her plate, waving away her tears. You have me, isn't that better than 10 babies, isn't it? But she couldn't eat, she couldn't ignore or put away her collection of sorrow and fury. It grew bigger and hotter in her chest until it felt like it was leaping up her throat to burn her tongue. Her hands clenched, her jaw tightened, her stomach churned. Hannah ran to God's special meeting place, presenting her empty belly and empty arms before God and she wept big, shuddering gulps of sorrow, hot, furious streams of tears. I'm so sad and so angry. She told God, it all spilled out of her, her bitterness, her pain, her sadness and her fear. I feel alone. I feel like I'm too much. I feel like I'm not enough. She spoke true words to God and felt the ache in her chest release just a bit. Oh God, who leads the angels, please remember me if you hear my misery, would you give me a son? I promise I will give him back to you every day of his life. I will teach him to listen to you and love you well as Hannah continued to pray, silently, moving only her lips. Eli, the high priest interrupted Woman, why are you acting so silly? Have you had too much wine. Stop making such a spectacle. Hannah twirled to face him, her eyes and heart alight a spectacle. No, no, I am here with my big feelings, anger, sadness, bitterness, misery, all bottled up for many years. They are a real burden, but I won't bear them any longer. I am here to pour them out before God. Ah, yes. Eli replied gently. God hears, may your dreams match God's own. Hannah returned to the feast smiling, and finally ate something. Her heart felt emptier yet fuller at the same time, it still ached with a mixture of sorrow and hope, but she no longer carried it alone as they prayed and sang. She trusted God to hear and to hold her feelings. Months went by, and Hannah's belly began to swell. She was going to have a baby, and when her son was born, Hannah delightedly named him Samuel, which means asked from God. God heard me when no one else did. I shared my whole heart, and God didn't try to shrink it down. God saw my sadness, my fear, my worry and my deep yearning. I didn't hold back, and God heard that is a true and beautiful thing. As she nursed Samuel, she spoke true and beautiful things over him, as well feeding his body, mind and heart. There are many stories we could tell about baby Samuel's long, lovely life, and they all started with Hannah's song, God hears us. She's saying Samuel would grow up to hear God's voice as a very young boy. People fail and forget. But God never gives up. Hannah saying Samuel would grow up to see the great leaders of God's people fall into horrible. Powerful, harmful ways. But he would search for God despite it all, someday, God will raise up a new king who will welcome God's ways, Hannah saying Samuel would grow up to be a close friend of God. He would speak true and beautiful things to God's people. He would anoint and guide the first kings of Israel. And through that line of kings would come the truest King, the hope of humanity. But for now, there was just a mother's song, a thunderous wish, fulfilled, and Samuel snuggled into her safety, surrounded by truth and trust. Have you ever had a longing, an unresolved ache within you that you have felt for such a long time it feels as if it lives in your very skin. Maybe it's a longing for yourself, perhaps to find work that feels purposeful and matters beyond just a paycheck, or a longing to not be alone, to find true companionship or friendship in life. Maybe there is an unrealized dream or hope for a second chance, maybe just for a place that feels like home, maybe for someone you love to be free from the destructive grip of addiction or for healing of a medical condition or health concern. Maybe it's an ache to grow your family or live the life you always imagined for yourself. The specifics might vary, but I'm talking about a particular and sustained ache or longing. Sometimes it might be quieter or more in the background, but it's something that you go to bed and wake up with each day heavy on your heart and mind and easily overlooked or dismissed by others and the world around us. This is the ache that the story of Hannah invites us into, recognizing, honoring, sitting with as we read about the sorrow that she carried within her, how year after year she wept and longed for a child of her own. Now, Hannah, whose story we find in the Old Testament, book of First Samuel, lived in a time and place where children were considered a symbol of blessing and belonging, a stamp of approval and favor from God and a measure of worth, especially as a woman and wife and she had none. Now it was the custom every year for Hannah and her family to travel to the tabernacle at Shiloh, the Hebrew place of worship, and offer a sacrifice to God. And every year, Elkanah, Hannah's husband, would offer an extra portion of meat to sacrifice for her, because he had great love for her and longed for her to be blessed by God as year after year she could not conceive a child. There was no doubt he also hoped for the honor and blessing of having a child with his wife, but it also seems he saw how this weighed on her. Now, Elkanah had another wife, Penina, who had several sons and daughters, but she was cruel to Hannah and would provoke her until Hannah wept and felt so ill she couldn't even eat. We read the Elkanah when seeing Hannah hurt like this because he cared for her so deeply, he tried to make things better, but responded in dismissive ways, saying, Hannah, my Hannah. Why do you weep? Why won't you eat? Why is your heart sad You have me? Isn't that better than 10 babies? I can only imagine the sting that Hannah felt as her grief and pain was minimized, unseen, invalidated even by her well meaning husband, not to mention the insults she received from Penina, whose ability to have children was a constant reminder of where Hannah felt like she was lacking, like someone pressing against a tender wound. And so we see that her pain was more complex than just the immense heartache of ongoing infertility. It was also the pain of feeling isolated, alone, misunderstood, like people were tired of having to deal with her being such a downer. Have you ever felt like that, like your grief is just an inconvenience to others like elkena? People can be so well intentioned and come from a place of love, trying to shift your perspective, cheer you up somehow, make it better. But unfortunately, this can often just shut us down. They may offer platitudes. We've all heard them, things like, everything happens for a reason, or God has a plan, or time heals all wounds, or like Elkanah, at least you have me. Isn't that enough? But this just minimum. Our emotions pressures us to just get over things, to keep our grief quiet and tidy and hidden, because it makes others uncomfortable. And this can be true of so many types of loss and grief we experience, but the specific pain of infertility that Hannah was experiencing, and any kind of prenatal loss or struggle. This is as real today as it was back then, and it still often goes unseen and makes us uncomfortable to talk about women and their partners can feel so alone in it, and that's crazy to me, because it is such a common experience. They say one in four pregnancies results in a miscarriage. I personally have known many women and close friends who have experienced pregnancy loss or struggled with infertility, and if this is part of your story and ache today, I want you to hear that you are not alone, and your experience and the longing within you matters. This is close to home for me, because in 2018 I experienced pregnancy loss. And the thing about that particular type of pain and loss is how incredibly isolating and lonely it feels. It isn't just the loss of the moment, it is also the loss of what could be that your heart has already been embracing the vision of your growing family a new life you have already begun to love and perhaps even call by a name, you begin to question what you did to cause it. You can begin to spiral with this undeserved guilt. It can feel so enormous and all consuming. It is a very physical and emotional experience, and there aren't many spaces where we feel safe to talk about it. It's as if nothing can hold your grief. I imagine Hannah felt in a similar way, dismissed, alone, heartbroken, unheard as we continue on in Hannah's story in First Samuel one nine, we read that after making their sacrifice and finishing their meal at Shiloh, Hannah stands up and in her deep anguish and distress, as if she can't hold it in anymore, she weeps and cries out to God in raw desperation, and she offers a prayer, asking God to Remember her and bless her with a child. Now Eli, the priest, was sitting there off to the side, and is quietly observing Hannah in verse 12, it says, as she kept on praying to the Lord, Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was praying in her heart and her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard. Eli thought she was drunk, and said to her, how long are you going to stay drunk? Put away your wine? But Hannah hadn't been drinking. Once again, she is misunderstood in her pain and faced with another hurtful voice, mistaking her grief and cry for help as a moral behavior, something shameful. So Hannah replies, not so, my Lord. I am a woman who is deeply troubled. I have not been drinking wine or beer. I was pouring out my soul to the Lord, do not take your servant for a wicked woman. I have been praying here out of my great anguish and grief. Elah answered, Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked. She said, may your servant find favor in your eyes. Then she went her way and ate something, and her face was no longer downcast. There is something deeply sacred about the release of our tears and sorrow to give them a voice, even when there are no words. Hannah didn't have any answers at this moment. Nothing had changed about her circumstances, but I think she knew and felt in her heart she had been heard. She felt lighter. We keep reading in verse 19. Early the next morning, they arose and worshiped before the Lord and then went back to their home at Ramah. Elkanah made love to his wife, Hannah, and the Lord remembered her. And if you go on, you'll read how she gives birth to a son, Samuel, who grows up to play a pivotal role in the trajectory of her people. Now I've heard this story used in ways that can feel unhelpful, like Hannah is a model of how to pray hard enough to get what you want from God, as if prayer is some kind of transaction, say the right words, make the right promise, and God will come through. But then what happens when the prayer goes unanswered? What does that mean about us? About God? It can leave us stuck in this quiet, shameful place, wondering if we're the problem. Maybe we didn't pray the right way, maybe we didn't believe enough. Maybe God isn't listening after all. But when we read the teachings of Jesus, he was pretty clear. Prayer has never been about saying the right words or putting on a good show. It has always been about the posture of the heart. Hurt about showing up, honest, even if you're a mess. I like how writer Anne lamet puts it, the three most powerful prayers are, help. Thanks. Wow. Sometimes that's all we have, just the raw ache, the not knowing, the wordless reaching. Hannah didn't perform a holy ritual. She didn't even speak aloud. Her prayer was so broken it looked like drunkenness, but still, God saw her. God heard her, not because she said the right thing, but because she brought her whole hurting self. That's the real power of the story, not that prayer guarantees a particular outcome, but that our pain is never too much for God. Our tears are not overlooked, even when the words fail. God draws near, because sometimes prayer is not belief at its strongest. Sometimes it's belief barely hanging on. It's ugly, it's raw, it's rock bottom. And what I think the story of Hannah teaches us, God is not looking for us to say the perfect prayer or live a perfect life, what God is looking for and desires most of all is the truth of us. And so when we read that God remembered her in verse 19, this is not a genie in the bottle moment. This is not a transaction. This is a moment of being seen, of being known, of being held by a God who doesn't forget, and even when the world and the people closest to her couldn't seem to understand or see her truth, Hannah bared it all to God and was met with a deep knowing inside like a voice that said, you are seen, you are heard, you are loved, you are not too much. And that is also a gift we can give to one another. When my mom passed earlier this year, the grief was overwhelming, and we often don't really know what we need in those times, but looking back the most meaningful moments, what helped me get through and not feel so alone were when friends and loved ones were willing to just be there in the pain with me. They didn't try to fix anything or tell me what I was feeling or how to feel. They just let me know it was enough to just be as I was, whatever I was feeling. It can feel uncomfortable, but it's actually really simple. It's about presence, not solutions. So many of us feel so lonely in this world, but this is why we need one another, why we gather in community. This is how we bolster ourselves against the fear and the unknowns of the world we live in. This is how we find strength when we just can't hold it together anymore, when the ache becomes too much. This is how we find hope now. Not every prayer ends with a miracle. Not every womb is filled, not every longing find its Yes. Life is full of unanswered questions, doubts, uncertainties, but this story offers us something more profound than resolution, it offers us a God who listens, a God who holds your heartbreak with tenderness, a God who says you are not alone in this. Maybe you haven't been heard in a long time. Maybe you've wondered if your pain matters to anyone, even God, I wonder, what is the quiet longing you carry? Where have you been misunderstood? What have you stopped praying for? Because it hurts too much to hope today, let Hannah's story be a whisper to your soul. Yes, you are seen, you are heard, you are loved, your experience and the longing you feel inside, it matters. Oh. All this pain, I wonder if I'll ever find my way. I wonder if my life could really change and oh, this earth. Could all that is lost ever be found? Could a garden come up from this ground at all? You make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of all all things. Out of hope is springing up from this, all ground out of chaos life is being found in you. You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful us, you make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of us. You You make me new. You are making me new. You me new. You make me new. You are making me new. Making beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of the dark. Beautiful things out of the dust. You make beautiful things. You make beautiful things out of us. May You know the God who listens even when your voice trembles, even when your words run out, even when all you can offer is silence or tears. May you trust that your sorrow is not too much, that your questions are not unwelcome, that your tears are noticed by the one who sees. May you find the courage to keep showing up, not with polished answers or perfect faith, but just as you are tender and true, and may you rest deeply in the truth that you are already held, already loved, already known, go in that love and may it meet you, even in the waiting. Amen. Thank you so much for joining us, and we hope you enjoyed this worship service. If you would like to make a donation helping make these broadcasts possible or support the many ways. First, Presbyterian seeks to serve our community. You can make a financial gift online@bendfp.org every week, we hear from someone thanking us for the gift of these broadcasts and what a difference they make. Your support makes that possible. Our church is committed to reach beyond our walls, bringing hope where there is despair and love where it is needed the most. Your generous support helps us to be generous in love. Go to our website, bend fp.org, and click on the link. Give online. Your support is really appreciated and makes a difference in people's lives. Thanks again. I hope to see you next week. You.