Giving Thanks for Blank Sheets

Some time in the past week or so, I had an email exchange with my mentor about the story of Hannah in 1 Samuel. Hannah is the mother of Samuel who, at first, was childless; hence her rival, Peninnah... the "other woman" who had lots of kids, would "provoke" her and Hannah's husband, Elkanah, would try to console her by noting, "Am I not more to you than ten sons?" None of this helped Hannah feel better about her situation, and she finally turns it over to God. The priest, Eli, also is not particularly sympathetic to her, believing that this woman who is sobbing and praying quiet prayers of desperation in the Temple must be drunk and he tells her to stop making a spectacle of herself. She pulls it together to tell him that she's sober, but hurting. And from here, she receives not only the blessing of the priest... but she bears her son, Samuel who would be the line from which we have the first kings of Israel.
In looking at this text, post Year One of Education for Ministry, something leaped out at me that I hadn't seen before:
Hannah was a woman living in the margins. She was a woman ridiculed by her rival, misunderstood by her husband, and chastised by her priest. And still, here is God in action, bringing this woman out of the margins to make her the matriarch of another important chapter in the history of Israel.
More than that: here is God establishing, as God has, does, and always will, that in the view of God... the piece of paper in which God has drawn all creation does not have margins, or lines. No one is on the "first line"; no one is placed to the right or to the left of a red vertical stripe on the sides of the page. Everyone, everything, exists for God on a blank sheet of paper. We are the ones who draw the lines that separate "us" from "them" and attempt to push those we see as "random" or "unimportant" out into the margins which we have created and imposed on God's blank sheet.
How often does this occur? How many times has a Peninnah or an Elkanah or an Eli in our lives made us feel as if we belonged somewhere closer to the hole punch on the page or possibly that we don't even belong on the same page at all? And when we feel ourselves getting drawn out of the picture, do we respond as Hannah and turn to God to see what is really true. To see that these lines that have suddenly appeared on the page are not God's, but that of other humans. Furthermore, as I consider the sacrifice that God made as Christ who challenged and "provoked" in his own way, I think of how all the lines that had been drawn were wiped clean in that moment where he announced, "It is finished." Why would we then insist on restoring those horizontal and vertical divisions between ourselves instead of rejoicing in the liberation from such restrictions?
On this Thanksgiving Day, I give thanks to a God who sees a full, whole, blank sheet and doesn't set us apart on lines or in margins. I am thankful that I have been shown a view of God, the creator and keeper of blank sheets.

"My heart exults in the Lord;
my strength is exalted in my God.
My mouth derides my enemies,
because I rejoice in my victory.
There is no Holy One like the Lord,
no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.
Talk no more so very proudly,
let not arrogance come from your mouth;
for the Lord is a God of knowledge,
and by him actions are weighed.
The bows of the mighty are broken,
but the feeble gird on strength.
Those who were full have hired
themselves out for bread,
but those who were hungry are fat with spoil.
The barren has borne seven,
but she who has many children is forlorn.
The Lord kills and brings to life;
he brings down to Sheol and raises up.
The Lord makes poor and makes rich;
he brings low, he also exalts.
He raises up the poor from the dust;
he lifts the needy from the ash heap,
to make them sit with princes
and inherit a seat of honor.
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's,
and on them he has set the world."
--Hannah's Prayer, 1 Samuel 2: 1-8

Happy Thanksgiving!