Year after year after year

I Samuel 1:7 So it went on year by year.

What is it that went on year by year?  There are several things that are either mentioned specifically or implied that happened regularly, yearly, for who knows how many years.  Elkanah, Samuel’s father, went to offer sacrifices year by year.  He cared about his family and was very sensitive to childless Hannah.  Year by year Hannah felt her pain of childlessness.  It was a pain that did not disappear in spite of her faithfulness along with Elkanah, year by year.  She was deeply distressed and weeping (see v. 10) year after year.  There was not an overnight answer to that distress.  It went on for many years, we don’t know how many.  The beauty of the story, however, lies in the fact that Elkanah and Hannah remained faithful to God through the pain of childless years and in God’s time, He answered Hannah’s prayer.  After Samuel was born, we read of another “year by year” when Hannah cam to see the child she gave back into God’s service, year by year.  She remained faithful through it all, year by year.  Sometimes we can see God in the mundane, the things that never seem to change even though we wish they would.  That's what Hannah learned.