1 Samuel 1:6-7
“And her adversary also provoked her sore, for to make her fret, because the Lord had shut up her womb.
And as he did so year by year, when she went up to the house of the Lord, so she provoked her; therefore she wept, and did not eat.”
It’s common to hear about Hannah on Mother’s Day. And for many good reasons.
But let’s shift our focus to Peninnah, the adversary who provoked Hannah.
The Bible doesn’t specifically name Peninnah as the adversary, but verse 7 of 1 Samuel 1, gives us a clue that it was likely her.
Peninnah had access to everything Hannah did.
She had the ability to make the choices that Hannah made.
But she chose to devote her energy to provoking Hannah, as an adversary. Instead of focusing on exposing her children to the house of the Lord, and raising up the next generation of prophets, judges, and holy men and women, she was stirring the pot. She was devoting her time to attacking someone else.
She was devoting her time to using her mouth against Hannah, setting the example to her children that the house of God didn’t mean anything special.
She potentially could’ve prayed with Hannah, for God to open her womb, she could’ve carried Hannah’s burdens. She could’ve met with the Lord, the same day Hannah did.
She could’ve told her children about the miracle the Lord was going to perform in Hannah’s life. She could’ve given her own children back to the Lord as Hannah did.
But she chose to be an adversary.
Which affected how her children were raised.
Which affected them for eternity.
They could’ve been exposed to the house of God, and the power of God, but instead, they watched their mother torture Hannah. They watched their mother gossip and back bite.
They watched the bitterness grow in their mother. They watched how she lacked any realness.
So the house of God meant little to them.
The bitterness seeped into their hearts.
They learned to gossip and back bite.
All because of the example that had been set by their mother.
They had the potential to be everything that Samuel was. They had access to the same things, they grew up together, they went to the tabernacle together.
What was the defining factor?
The woman who raised them.
You can’t always choose how your children “turn out.” But you can choose what kind of woman raises them.
You wouldn’t get to celebrate today, had God not blessed you with children, what kind of woman are you giving them to raise them?
You get to choose.
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