Who Remembers Peninnah?

If you were on Jeopardy and the category was Bible, and the answer was "Peninnah," would you buzz in?  Probably not.  If the answer was "Hannah," you probably would.

The Book of 1 Samuel tells the tale of Elkanah, a good man married to two wives.  The first wife, Peninnah, has able to have children.  The second wife, Hannah, like many Biblical heroines, was not.  Peninnah was unkind to Hannah about their differing fortunes and made her feel terrible.  Elkanah was kind to Hannah and, in fact, preferred her, but it was no consolation.  Hannah was so distraught with her desire for a child that she cried out to God so desperately in prayer that the priest nearly threw her out of the Temple thinking she was drunk in the house of God.  How often have you prayed so hard that the the preacher thought you had showed up to church drunk and tried to throw you out?  Hannah knew something about praying from the heart that few of us know.

Still, I think more of us relate to Hannah than to Peninnah.  More of us know how it feels to be passed over than those of us who know what it's like to be chosen.  More of us know what it's like to be jealous of another person who has what we most deeply and rightly desire than those of us who know what it's like to look down in condescension upon those who want what we have.  Most of us know what it's like to cry out in desperation for our heart's desire.  Fewer of us know what it's like to have the self-satisfaction of having been granted our desires.

Perhaps the good news is that Hannah is remembered and Penninah is not.  As I write this, my computer recognizes "Hannah" and puts red squiggles under "Penninah."  I know many people named Hannah.  I've never met a Penninah.

The story of the heaven-kissed chosen one who gets things easily and looks down on the others is a boring, quickly forgotten story.  The golden children of the world are rarely remembered.

It's the rest of us who lead lives that are more heartfelt, more interesting, perhaps more painful.  We are the ones whose stories are compelling--those of us who must labor for the fulfillment of God's promises, those of us who have wept in prayer for longing, those of us who have daily knelt before God and opened the dark corners of our hearts in order to keep from being eaten up with jealousy, those of us who don't understand why it must be so more difficult for us and seemingly so easy for others.  Why does God always seem to point us toward the headwind when it looks like the calling of so many others lets them sail on with the wind at their back?

The soul comes alive when the wind is in the face.  Intimacy with God is found in desperation.  Hannah found more joy in Samuel than Penninah ever found in her children (whose names are not remembered at all).