The Lord has not only conceived marriage in terms of friendship and procreation; even when the spouses respect each other, they love with tenderness and seek with all their hearts mutual happiness, in God's plan, it is a school of life and faith. Jacob loved Rachel tenderly to the point that he served seven years to receive her as a wife (Genesis 29:20); despite this, the marriage had some problems because Rachel could not have children and this made her very unhappy (Genesis 30:1-2). The same happened in the marriage between Elkanah and Hannah, Samuel's parents. Elkanah loved her sincerely, and had special attention for her (1 Samuel 1:5), but his love was not all for Hannah because she could not have children, and this was reason enough to make her unhappy (1:7-8). The same problem is found in another marriage, between the great patriarch Abraham and his wife Sarai. She was a beautiful woman (Genesis 12:11), but she had the same great difficulty as previous women, she was barren and had no children (11:30) and this did not make her happy (16:1-2).
In these three cases, the husbands had no responsibility for the problems of their wives and, despite their wishes, with all their love and affection, they could not have influence and could not change the condition of the spouses. It was really a severe trial for all of them, and only the Lord could help them. They waited for a long time until the promise came that Sarai would have a son (17:15-19), and that was the case in her old age (21:1-3). Rachel also prayed to the Lord, and He heard her voice giving her the desire of her heart (30:22-24; 35: 15-18). The same thing happened with Hannah, she waited, prayed, wept, and even made a vow (1 Samuel 1:8, 10-12), and the divine fulfillment was granted to her in due course(1 Samuel 1:20). In none of these cases was it a question of problems between husband and wife, on matters of mentality, behavior or character, but it was with faith, earnest prayer and steadiness that they found the solution. If that difficult physiological problem had a happy solution, can we expect minor problems to have a positive result? The promise is: "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able." What will He do in our trial? "With the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." 1 Corinthians 10:13
By Antonino Di Franca
