An Unexpected Journey

  A friend shared tonight about Hannah in the bible.  Hannah was a woman in the Old Testament who had a sister wife.  Yep! Did you know that was in the bible?  And there were problems.  Real sister wife problems!  The story tells us that the “other wife” had children, but Hannah did not.  It says her husband gave food to the other wife and their kids, but he gave Hannah a “double portion because he loved her, and the Lord had closed her womb (1 Sam. 1:5).”  Soooo of course there was jealousy and mocking and unequal love… and well, all the stuff you would imagine.   But what grabbed me is that the scripture says several times that the Lord himself closed Hannah’s womb.  My friend posed the question- how many times has the Lord closed a door for us on purpose, but we couldn’t understand it?  Think of all the agony Hannah suffered- the bible says “year after year” as this went on.  She could see the pain in front of her, but not the whole plan.  The big picture.  She didn’t know there was