698) It can be a very hurtful thing if someone makes an incorrect assumption about you. Take a minute and think of a time this happened. What did it feel like, and why?

In 1 Samuel 1:12-16, we find a broken-hearted woman–Hannah. She desperately wants to conceive and have a son, but this chapter tells us that God had closed her womb. Hannah was tormented by her husband’s other wife, Peninnah, because she had children. The hurt and pain Hannah experienced both at someone else’s hand and her own was almost too much to bear. Because of this, Hannah goes to the house of the Lord to plead with God. She is so earnest that she appeared to be someone perhaps speaking to themselves while drunk. The priest, Eli, saw her and assumed she was indeed drunk and basically chastises her for it. This assumption must have hurt Hannah and had the potential to harm her reputation. It’s easy to figure out how we feel when someone makes an incorrect assumption about us, but what about the times that we do this very thing to others? Assumptions are often incorrect and can hurt many.