1 Samuel 1:13 “As for Hannah, she was speaking in her heart, only her lips were moving, but her voice was not heard. So Eli thought she was drunk.” (NASB)
Have you ever tried to read lips? I have tried, but I hate to say I’m not good at it. When people whisper or people hardly open their mouths when they talk, it is impossible for me to read lips. Below is an interesting situation with Hannah. She is saying a prayer, but her grief and sorrow make it almost impossible for her to open her mouth and utter the words she wants to say. For someone looking at her it would seem as if she was drunk, which is what the priest, Eli, thought. One thing we have to know about being misunderstood is that people are not seeing the full picture. Hannah was misunderstood as a drunk, because her soul was expressing something to God that her mouth could not say with words. When we talk to God and our hearts are heavy, and our souls are weary, words are hard to come by. So when you ask someone how they are doing and they barely open their mouth to say “fine,” now you know. They’re not fine. They are not being rude if they have a short answer. They simply just have too much and they don’t have the words at that moment to express what they are feeling or how they are feeling. What do you do in those situations? Be a listening ear. Be someone they can talk to, because just like Hannah, they might be misunderstood.