Barren, Broken, and Begging: When God Stays Silent (Hannah)

The story of Hannah opens inside a storm of rivalry, shame, and unmet longing—and yet it becomes a roadmap for hope. We unpack how a woman dismissed by culture and misread by a priest found language for her pain, courage for her vow, and a song that reframed value beyond fertility, status, or success. Along the way, we wrestle with the messier threads: a husband who minimizes real depression, a priest who projects his anxieties, and a community that confuses outcomes with worth.

What surprised us most is the tenderness woven into Eli’s broken narrative. After a harsh misread, he listens, blesses, and later helps young Samuel recognize God’s voice—a quiet second chance inside consequences he can’t reverse. That tension matters for mental health and discipleship: people can wound us and still become part of our healing; grace doesn’t erase fallout but can redirect a legacy. We also talk about spiritual parenting and the power of community mentors—the craftspeople, teachers, and safe adults who bolster a child’s faith and emotional resilience when a home is stretched thin.

Hannah’s song stands as the episode’s heartbeat: identity rooted in God’s character, not in what we produce or what others say we lack. We challenge formulaic faith around infertility and outcomes, insisting the text is descriptive, not prescriptive, and we center the presence of God as the anchor when everything else shakes. If you’ve ever felt unseen or mislabeled in your struggle, this conversation invites you to bring your ache to the One who hears—even when words won’t come—and to watch how blessing, community, and steadfast presence can change the story.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Scene And Birthday Banter
• 1:05 Why Hannah’s Story Matters
• 2:20 Dysfunction, Polygamy, And Social Shame
• 4:05 Depression, Teasing, And A Clueless Husband
• 5:30 Silent Prayer And Eli’s Misread
• 7:35 Blessing, Vows, And Unexpected Grace
• 9:20 Description Not Prescription: Infertility Nuance
• 11:00 Eli’s Sons, Consequences, And Second Chances
• 13:05 Spiritual Family And Community Parenting
• 15:10 Hannah’s Song And Letting God Defend You
• 17:05 Justice, Grace, And Identity In God
• 18:45 Ichabod, Loss, And Longing For Presence
• 20:15 Breaking Cycles: Samuel’s Legacy And David Tease
• 21:30 A Prayer For Presence And Healing

Transcript

Dave Quak: 0:00

Welcome to Sunburnt Souls. I'm Dave Quak. I'm here with Jess Quak. On this show, we speak about life, faith, and our mental well-being.

Jess Quak: 0:06

Jessica, how are you doing today? I'm doing well. How are you?

Dave Quak: 0:09

Good. Why are you doing well?

Jess Quak: 0:11

Um, it's my birthday tomorrow. That's always a bit of a fun time.

Dave Quak: 0:15

It's crazy, it's your birthday. How old are you turning?

Jess Quak: 0:17

41.

Dave Quak: 0:18

41. That's weird for you and for me. Yeah. When I was young, I'd never picture kissing a 41-year-old, and now it's gonna happen.

Jess Quak: 0:26

I'm glad.

Dave Quak: 0:27

You're 41. What's it feel like to be that old?

Jess Quak: 0:30

Um it's weird because I still feel young, but I feel so old at the same time.

Dave Quak: 0:35

Yeah, you're an old soul.

Jess Quak: 0:36

Yeah.

Dave Quak: 0:37

You're an old soul. We're talking about a lady called Hannah today who kind of reminds me of a bit of an old soul. You know, she'd been around, nothing came quite so easily to her in the early days, at least. And so if you haven't been here for our series, we're starting to delve into biblical heroes who also wrestle with their mental well-being. Last week we had Elijah, if you missed that, go and have a look. But today we're gonna look at Hannah and Jess. What do you think about Hannah?

Jess Quak: 1:03

Yeah, I think the the whole account of Hannah is is so interesting because nothing takes place in a vacuum. And um you can just really see, like, even the setup of her, the pinnacle of her story, which is Samuel. She gives birth to Samuel, who is one of the the greatest prophets. Um, he's got books after him in the Old Testament.

Dave Quak: 1:28

If you want to read the account, one and two, Samuel is where it's at.

Jess Quak: 1:30

Yeah, it's the way to go. Um, but setting the scene, it really is this this whole lot of brokenness. And so Hannah sort of comes into this, and it's her story, but it's almost for me, I see her story within the real brokenness and dysfunction of two different families.

Dave Quak: 1:49

What two different families?

Jess Quak: 1:50

Okay, so you've got uh two different families which are are mentioned really in this account, and it's Hannah's family, so she is married to a guy who also has another wife, and you know, in the Old Testament, you don't necessarily read it and go, because it's there, that must be what God is after. Um, so much of it is descriptive of what people did, and then it's actually down to the reader to meditate on the scripture and look at the consequence and see whether or not it aligns with God's plan for flourishing or not. And so you see um many times in in the context of this day and age where men will take more than one wife, but very, very I can't think of a single time actually, where it actually goes well. Um, every time it turns out that there is problems with it, and so she's in this problematic relationship, and um as a woman in her time, she depends on her husband um to look at to look after her, and her value is seen by the community um with as far as her ability to bear children and to continue to uh raise up her her husband's children, and she is barren. So because there is another wife who has children, she is the obviously the person who who is the problem as far as this is concerned. So she carries this social weight um upon herself, but there's also this real tension between her and the other wife because Hannah's actually the one who is favoured in the husband's eyes. And so this my heart really goes out for this other wife.

Dave Quak: 3:42

For Hannah or the other one?

Jess Quak: 3:44

The other wife, because yes, she has these children, but she doesn't have her husband's love.

Dave Quak: 3:50

Yeah, but she's also a pest. You know?

Jess Quak: 3:53

But why does she become a pest?

Dave Quak: 3:55

I don't know.

Jess Quak: 3:55

Because she doesn't have her husband's love. She's got this other woman. She's got this other woman there, and so that's her that's her thing where she can go, well, at least I have this and you don't.

Dave Quak: 4:07

And is that what she does to tease Hannah about?

Jess Quak: 4:09

That's what she comes at Hannah about. Um, look, at least I have this, and her husband and the husband is completely misunderstanding the whole relationship dynamic as well. So when she's crying out to God, going, I am so depressed, I am being teased because I um I don't have as much worth socially. I feel like my, you know, this is my purpose and I'm not reaching it, which is a very difficult place to be in. Um, and her husband just answers, like, Well, aren't I enough for you?

Dave Quak: 4:39

I remember that.

Jess Quak: 4:40

Aren't I more than 10 sons?

Dave Quak: 4:42

Yeah, doesn't he say, Don't I mean more to you than 10 sons?

Jess Quak: 4:44

Yeah, meanwhile, he's got this other wife on the side, right? So she's like, No, no. Um, and so yeah, she's in this like a misunderstood relationship with her husband, with the angst of having this consistently every day thrown in her face, other children of this other woman in her household that she is looking after. She is without that purpose and and social value, and she's just distraught. She is genuinely broken.

Dave Quak: 5:22

Yeah. And it seems too, she wasn't like, or she seemed to be a bit of a magnet for men who didn't know what to say.

Dave Quak : 5:28

Yeah.

Dave Quak: 5:29

It's because her her husband goes, Hey, don't know me more to you than ten sons. Yeah. And she's like, just shh and goes off to the temple and she starts praying. Do you remember what happens then?

Jess Quak: 5:38

Yeah, so this is actually a really beautiful account of she comes to God with all of this. So when it's time to go to the temple and the whole family goes up to the temple, they make the trek there, they make their sacrifices, and she's too s too devastated to eat. So, you know, especially anyone who's struggled with any kind of anxiety and depression and just long-term hardship, there's that real physical response of like you just do not feel like eating. And her husband's like, Come on, why aren't you gonna have something? And she goes, I'm just gonna go. So she goes um to pray and to talk to God, and she is so distraught that she's praying there in the temple, but she's without words. Her lips are moving the prayers, but she just does not have the oomph and the energy and capacity it takes to be praying these prayers out loud. They're so soul deep prayers. She's weeping and mourning and pouring her heart out to God, which is something so beautiful. Um, and then Eli is the priest, he is the man of God who is standing there and he sees her and he says he looks at what's going on here because for him as well, like contextually, this is a time when people would be praying out loud. So, someone you don't really see before this someone praying without words spoken aloud. So, this is one of those things where it's a little bit unusual, but she's connecting with God in a very genuine way. And because of his context of his family dynamic, he's like, Oh no, she's been drinking.

Dave Quak: 7:24

Yeah, see, Eli's not your most discerning character. You know, he looks at her and he looks at his own sons, and he's probably not got a lot of insight into how to disciple people, even though he's the priest, right?

Jess Quak: 7:35

Yeah, so he should be the one who's really helpful here, but probably because of his own dynamic within his family. Like, think about how hard that would have been for him. So Eli has these sons that he's meant to be raising up to be priests.

Dave Quak: 7:48

And if you don't know, they're the lunatics, man. These guys are off the hook.

Jess Quak: 7:51

Exactly. So every time the festivals are coming, they're going and drinking way too much. So for him, every time this time of which is meant to be sacred and holy, comes, he's probably got this whole anxious thing. If anyone who's ever, you know, lived with someone who has a substance abuse problem, there are times and events where it it becomes almost like, oh no, here we go, we're about to to deal with this. So he's probably got that going on in the back of his mind as well. So, and he sees what he considers like, oh no, this is one of those behaviours. Um, so he's just seeing it, you can see he's just so he's kind of broken in that way. His heart is broken, and as a priest as well, he would have been reading, like, you know, Aaron, the very first priest of the Israelites' sons, were killed on the spot before God because they they didn't take the holiness of their job seriously, and the very first command, sort of, to Aaron after that was no one comes into this holy place drinking too much.

Dave Quak: 8:57

So you're given more concession than I would have to Eli. I was just on his case for being a bad dad. But with all that in mind, no wonder he looks at her and he says, Loi, get out of here, won't you stop drinking your wine?

Jess Quak: 9:07

Yeah, and so for me, this is a story of restoration, not only for Hannah, but also for Eli. Because he has and and when we're in these in these moments, right, where um I remember when I first shared with people that I was struggling with depression. And sometimes people say things that are so unhelpful in those moments, and they do these things with the most genuine heart to help or to connect. Um, but the things that they say are actually more harmful than good, and it's actually seeing that hang on, giving those people the grace as well to go hang on, they've also got their own thing going on, like there's a lot of church hurt and a lot of extra hurt that comes when we see God through the filter of the behavior of other people who are just as broken in their own ways too. He uses people, but he uses very broken people as well in this broken world.

Dave Quak: 10:10

It's true. One cool thing, Eli, when you know he challenges her and she says, Not so, you know, I haven't been drinking anything, then he blesses her. He's like, Go in peace. Yeah, like he didn't stick to his guns, at least he was teachable.

Jess Quak: 10:22

Oh, absolutely, and he had the authority, and just as we do now, which is amazing, because we anyone who is in Christ, anyone who is like, Yeah, I'm a follower of Jesus, we have the Holy Spirit in us to have the same authority to be blessing people, and it means something. And for her, she's coming before God and she's saying, If you give me a child, Lord, you can have this child. Yeah, this child will be yours. And he blesses her and it comes to pass.

Dave Quak: 10:56

It does. I like how it actually she get, you know, he gets sent away early the next morning, uh, verse 19, they arose and worship before the Lord, and then Elkanah lay with Hannah, his wife, and the Lord remembered her. It's early in the morning. A bit of early morning snuggles, yes.

Jess Quak: 11:12

Yeah, I'm pretty sure in my it even says he made love with her. Oh, yeah.

Dave Quak: 11:17

With her or to her? With her.

Jess Quak: 11:19

With her, yeah.

Dave Quak: 11:20

Yeah, but it's like it is such an alternative event. And because the husband loved Hannah, you know, he laid with her and then she became pregnant. I mean, it was like really a long process to get to the blessing.

Jess Quak: 11:32

Yeah, it was. And it's not necessarily, you know, for everyone that it's gonna happen this way, that if you say and bargaining with God is not usually something you wanna take part in. That's um something God really's being very, very careful about this. But she really this was a step of faith for her to say, I know that I'm barren, basically. Yeah, and I know that you are a God who can who can overcome this, and she she brings it to God, and then she's also faithful after the fact, then too.

Dave Quak: 12:09

She honours her promise. Yeah. On that too, you said, you know, she was faithful and she brought it to the Lord and the Lord blessed her. It doesn't mean if you can't get pregnant, you're not faithful. Like, just don't read into any of this. This is all description, not prescription, as just said earlier. You know, there's people who are super faithful and can't have children, and there's some that are absolute scoundrels who have 15 children. So there's not like a s like it's not like your formula anymore.

Jess Quak: 12:33

No, absolutely not. And and we actually see time and time again, if you go through Jesus' genealogy, there are so many people in that genealogy who are barren, and then God has this miraculous child, and it's not that that is like this is what God is gonna do every single time. Yeah, it's not because for Eli his sons don't get restored, he's like he had children, but they were not great. Hannah didn't have children, and it was not great. So there's so many different ways in which we can all be suffering just because you have children doesn't make life better, just because you don't have children doesn't make life better. It's that we are living in this brokenness and God wants to meet us there, and then through these threads of his grace, um, he can bring about sort of this this new and fresh. So I always look at this and then go, Wow, for Eli, once you know Samuel would have been weaned, which he probably would have been quite a bit older than what we often will be.

Dave Quak: 13:38

Oh, you know, this grosses me out, man. You just skip this part of the story.

Jess Quak: 13:43

So, like, you know, maybe I don't know how long people some people will breastfeed like one month, six months, one year, two years. This would have been, you know, in a situation in a scenario where people would have been breastfeeding for quite a few years.

Dave Quak: 13:57

Yeah.

Jess Quak: 13:57

So when Samuel then comes to Eli, he's then raised, you know, as in the temple.

Dave Quak: 14:06

Yeah.

Jess Quak: 14:06

And for Eli then, he gets to have this fathering thing all over again. It's like this restoration. And Samuel is a real man of God, and he's got a heart for God for it from a very, very young age. I'd not thought of that.

Dave Quak: 14:22

Like I didn't think of Eli's second chance, you know, like his first two didn't work out. At least he does get another crack. That's cool. I didn't think of that.

Jess Quak: 14:28

Yeah, and so it's this full restoration for him as well, um, where he gets to have this sort of family moment, not with his own biological child, but with a child.

Dave Quak: 14:39

Yeah, and that's a good point within the body of Christ too. Like, so often some of the most impacting people on your children's life or your life aren't your biological children or parents, but they're spiritual parents or children that have been brought into your life. Yeah, you know, for that. I know we've seen that in our own life, this is a bit of a digression, but I don't have many man skills. Like I can father a couple of kids, I guess that's man skills, and I can try to build a deck outside near the pool, but I can't build staff or whatever. And there's a couple of guys from church who are really good at this, and one guy in particular, I love him, his name's Jonathan, taught our son how to make a guitar, how to build a guitar, and you know, and and I didn't have the ability to do it, but they did it, and this awesome guy spent maybe 40 hours showing Josiah that. And as you and I both know, when you're building things and when you're working with your hands, you have conversation, you check in with each other, like he was helping father our child during that time, and so it is one of the cool parts of the body of Christ.

Jess Quak: 15:38

Yeah, it's that real um, yeah, even not biological children are children that you can still be investing into their life. And there's some really cool statistics about you know, children growing up in the church, and if they have five adults who are safe places for them who are not their parents within the church, they're more likely to be able to continue strong in their faith through those young adult years and adult years as they're figuring life out because they have that strong sense of community and belonging, and they have uh people investing in them that are different to their own parents, and they can see a wider range of how God is at work in different people's lives and therefore showing them how God can be at work in their life.

Dave Quak: 16:24

Yeah, that's cool. Circling back to Hannah, you know how before you were saying how she was, you know, she was tormented and teased and everything else. What I like about Hannah is once she gets what she'd been praying for, not that we always do, but she did in this case. Yeah, once she got what she was asking for, she prays what I would consider one of the most beautiful and powerful prayers um from 1 Samuel chapter 2. She I'll just read a little bit, but she goes, My heart rejoices in the Lord. In the Lord my horn is lifted high. And horn in this um translation means strength, like my you know, my strength is lifted up. My mouth boasts ov uh over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance. There is no one holy like the Lord, there is no one beside you, there is no rock like our God. And she continues on for like eleven verses just extolling God. And that's one cool thing, like if you've got something going on in your mental well-being and you get deliverance, make sure to come back to God to thank him, hey, because he's the author of that deliverance too.

Jess Quak: 17:24

Yeah, absolutely. I actually used to be really uncomfortable with this prayer.

Dave Quak: 17:29

Why?

Jess Quak: 17:30

Um, because of the way that sh she would say things like, the baron has born seven, but she who has many children is forlorn. So she's it's really uncomfortable in the way where she's kind of like, ha ha, God has got my back. And look at how much he's given me, and you're kind of left standing, you have your children, but I've got things better than you. And for me, I that used to make me very uncomfortable. But then through when you look at the the bigger picture of things, I think too because I feel so sorry for this other wife, because you know, she's also living in this situation and scenario that's not ideal for her. Um but for Hannah, you don't see her speak up and speak out, and she doesn't come to her own defence, her husband doesn't come to her defence, and yet God does. And so when God comes to her defense, she praises him for it. And there's something so very valuable in that kind of an attitude where we go, I'm gonna leave my defense up to God because he knows the hearts of people, he knows how what is just um because when we want to go to our own defense, we often not just want justice, we want revenge or retro, we want to go over and above. Um, but when we leave it to God, it's always just no, he knows what's right here, and he he has my back, and she really acknowledges that here. And I think it's a it's a really good, um, it's very uncomfortable still a little bit, but it's it's a good reminder that when we're going through these hardships and when we feel like we are up against it and we're all alone and there are people just speaking words over us and being mean to us and our what we perceive as our weaknesses are being thrown in our face constantly. Going back to God to be the one who defines who we are and allowing him to be our defence rather than pushing back. Like, I mean, we need to have good boundaries and everything too, but ultimately giving it to God to be the one who will be our victor and he will be he will fight on our behalf.

Dave Quak: 19:53

So what about okay? So we see that with Hannah, she goes back to God to thank God because he fought on her behalf.

Dave Quak : 19:58

Yeah.

Dave Quak: 19:58

But then we get back to Eli. And his sons, and these guys are the worst. Like they're flogging from the offerings, they're and and eventually God takes them out, right? So Hannah's story is that God came through and gave her Samuel. Eli's story is that it would seem, now I don't want to blame God, but it would seem that God didn't actually come through with deliverance for Eli, because his kids are lunatics. And so what do we do when you know, so Hannah gets a son. What do we do if we get a son and he turns out to be crazy?

Jess Quak: 20:30

I think it's actually quite cool the way that that happens in a way. Um our children do not belong to us. They belong to God. And God is a just God. So in each of these scenarios, justice happened. Um and it's never the justice like we don't actually really want justice.

Dave Quak: 20:49

Oh, we don't want justice, we're all dead.

Jess Quak: 20:51

Um exactly. If we all had justice, we would all be dead, we'd be gone. Um we want grace, which is what God offers so much. But they're they're like in a way, like Eli should have been pulling up his sons before he did. And as a parent, it's really hard to read this sort of thing, especially when you can look back and see your own failures. But at the end of the day, you come you need to come back to the the human dignity that each person, like we have a responsibility to raise our children well, but they are God's people and they're very own people in their own right as well. And every child eventually will get to the place where they have the freedom to choose whether they are following him or not, living in his ways or not, and it actually doesn't always necessarily reflect on the parenting either. Um because if we had a a system and a format, people wouldn't be themselves, they would be who we created them to be.

Dave Quak: 21:54

I like this because for Eli, as the priest at the temple, right, to find out that your sons are shagging the women at the entrance to the temple, if you have your identity based on the fact that these are my kids and they're doing X, Y, Z, and that makes me good or bad, it's gonna fall down pretty quick.

Dave Quak : 22:11

Yeah.

Dave Quak: 22:11

So it's really crazy how it all ends, though, is because Eli's old and Finney Hass and the other son are out to war, right? And then they both die on the same day. The Ark of the Covenant gets stolen in battle, which is obviously a big deal.

Dave Quak : 22:28

Massive.

Dave Quak: 22:30

Eli finds out about the Ark of the Covenant getting stolen, and he falls off his chair, and the Bible says because he was old and fat, he breaks his neck and he dies. Yeah. And then his daughter-in-law, the wife of Phinehas, comes on in and she's heavily pregnant, she finds out about the Ark of the Covenant being stolen, she goes into labor, and then she dies, and the baby lives, and they call it Ichabod, which means there's no glory here.

Jess Quak: 22:54

Yeah.

Dave Quak: 22:55

Isn't that a crazy way for this all to end?

Jess Quak: 22:57

Yeah, I mean it is, but then it was actually something that they were told was going to happen in a way. So in chapter two, Samuel comes to the temple, and then he's there, and then God tells Eli, hey, because of the way that you have parented your children, and because of the way that they are behaving, um, and you've put them before me, um, I'm gonna wipe you guys out.

Dave Quak: 23:31

Um He said that to Eli.

Jess Quak: 23:33

He told Eli that that was gonna happen. But sort of the grace of God is that between the prophecy and them all dying, you have that moment where Eli sort of gets to be a part of Samuel hearing God's voice, audible voice for the first time. Yeah. So he gets this sort of restoration moment there. Um when Samuel's sleeping and he can hear the voice of God calling him, and he goes to Eli and he says, You called me, and Eli says, you know, this is the voice of God. If you hear it again, say, you know, Lord, what would you like? Um So that's really cool that there that there's that almost second chance there, like, yeah, it's messed up. Because it's you often see it go the other way, really sadly, where someone might be doing so well their whole life and then screw it up at the end. Dude. And just Philip Yancey today.

Dave Quak: 24:27

We just found out today that Philip Yancey was having an affair.

Jess Quak: 24:30

Yeah. What the heck? Yeah, and it's just there's something about it that makes your spirit, your heart, yeah, everything just go, oh no. Um and yet you see someone else like Eli who who you know is been pretty messed up the whole way along. And yet God kind of brings this restoration moment before the end. Um and it's quite beautiful, I think. But there is I mean, there's always that um consistent sort of and you see it within both families, and you see it throughout the whole Old Testament when there is a sin at play, it can be just one very first seed, each generation it just continues and it grows, and the the way that it affects people and the community, it actually it's not that it's not a big deal, it actually is. Yeah, um, so you see, you know, Eli dies a really large man because he's been gorging himself on the food. On the offering food, yeah. So yeah, maybe he started by this this gorging, and then his sons just took it to the next level. So they're not just gorging themselves on food, they're also doing it on drink and on women, and it's this um, it's just that next level kind of thing. And so when you see the pattern broken, it's a it's a really beautiful thing.

Dave Quak: 25:57

Yeah. I think what I like most out of this whole account is that at the end they're all despairing that the Ark of the Covenant got taken. And that's kind of good because like in all of our brokenness and mess and stupidity and sin and folly and everything else, we ought to want God more than anything else. Even in amongst all that.

Dave Quak : 26:16

Yeah.

Dave Quak: 26:17

You know, the Ark of the Covenant represented the very presence of God.

Dave Quak : 26:20

Yeah.

Dave Quak: 26:20

And when it got stolen, I mean, I want to be at a place where if God's presence got taken from me, I'd fall off a chair. You know, not m not break my back, but you know, Eloh not break my neck, I mean, but like, you know, like that it'll be that horrible to think God is not with me, you know, like in all of this, God's there. And then, you know, there's some really funny accounts in the next few chapters where the Ark of the Covenant's in the same room as this, you know, demonic God called Dagan and all funny stuff goes down. You can read that for yourself. But I think, you know, as we're exploring this series, Jess, we've got to always come back to the fact that all of us are broken in one way or another, whether it be physically or spiritually or emotionally. Like we've all got some stuff going on. But if God and his presence is there, we've got a chance of getting through.

Jess Quak: 27:08

That's it. And he does long to be with us and connect with us and restore us and bring us to freedom and for us to be like Hannah, where we base our identity not on what we can provide, how we fit in socially, what our family situation is, what other people say about us, but about our connection with God is what defines us. That's where we find real strength and hope and flourishing in life. Um, and it can and it can continue to happen, and then Samuel's life is is amazing, and you see the things that he gets to do, and the way that his lack of comp he goes the other way where he sees this go down with Eli and his family and his and his mum's family, and then he lives different and he breaks the cycle, and he becomes the one who calls out kings to be like, you know what? This is not the way to flourishing. You do right by the Lord, you come back to the Lord, and and that's where you'll find human flourishing.

Dave Quak: 28:13

One of the biggest things he does is he anoints David, right? Yeah, and I reckon maybe that's what we should do next week is have a look at David.

Dave Quak : 28:20

Yeah.

Dave Quak: 28:21

You know, a man who was passionately in love with God and also so very stupid.

Jess Quak: 28:29

We had a lot going on.

Dave Quak: 28:30

Oh, yeah, it's so much going on. You don't get to the end of David's life and have like two notes in your um memoirs, and I suppose that's why most of the Samuels have David featured. But just I'm appreciative of that chat. I reckon we should just just for a while just pray together a bit of a Hannah prayer, just of you know, God, you are good, and that'll be us for the week.

Dave Quak : 28:54

Yeah, awesome.

Dave Quak: 28:55

So, God, we just do thank you, Lord God, for the way you are with us and you go before us. Lord, your presence chases us, Lord God, and we don't have to go anywhere to find you, you are here, Lord. And so we pray that as we explore biblical heroes that struggled in their mental well-being, that we'll be able to see you in amongst it all, Lord God, that we will feel your presence close with us. And it's not about us looking at them pointing fingers, but it's about us looking at ourselves, seeing God's grace in our lives.

Jess Quak: 29:24

Yeah, yeah, Lord, and I ask that for the listeners today, whether they be someone who's a person who's still in that moment of despair, a parent or a child, or um, someone who's even on the other side of it, that there is that real sense of calling to be able to come to you freely through your invitation right now, Lord God, to meet with you and to pour out either our our hurt and our grief, our hopes, our pain, or our joy and celebration and worship, Lord God. We just ask that, yeah, your very tangible presence will be meeting with people now in doing that. And we thank you, Lord God, that because of Jesus, you do promise that you see us, you hear us, you meet with us, you long for that so that we um we can always be assured that you're right there waiting.

Dave Quak: 30:25

Amen.

Jess Quak: 30:26

Amen.