From shuyi's blog.

"12:02 pm - Essentials of Prayer (E.M. Bounds)

Prayer and God's Work
If Jacob's desire had been given him in time for him to get a good night's sleep, he might never have become the prince of prayers we know today. If Hannah's prayer for a son had been answered at the time she set for herself, the nation might never have known the mighty man of God it found in Samuel. Hannah wanted only a son, but God wanted more. He wanted a prophet, and a savior, and a ruler for His people. Someone said that "God has to get a woman before He could get a man." This woman He got in Hannah precisely by those weeks and months and years there came a woman with a vision like God's, with tempered soul and gentle spirit and a seasoned will, prepared to be the kind of a mother for the kind of a man God knew the nation needed.- W.E. Biederwolf

I like this passage. It speaks of the training in character and faith one undergoes in his or her search for answers. It hints of the process going on in who one doesn't loses hope in the face of apparently unanswered prayer. People like quick answers, but God is less concern with maintaining His image, through people-pleasing antics, but more interested in making us who we can become and helping us attain Christ-likeness. I thank Him for that..."

i thank Him for that too.