Hamnet: What story does your life tell?

With Hamnet out now, Lauren Westwood reminds us that our faith is lived out in our relationships with others.

Maggie O’Farrell’s much-loved novel Hamnet has made its transition to the big screen. Starring Paul Mescal as William Shakespeare and Jessie Buckley as his wife, Agnes, the film is set to sweep the most prestigious categories this awards season.

If you’re like me, you went into the cinema already knowing the story, which centres around the death of Agnes and William’s only son, Hamnet, at the age of 11. I read the book quickly, lending it to so many friends that my copy has vanished without a trace. Page by page, I was mesmerised by the imagined everyday life of the Shakespeare family, far from the esteemed Globe Theatre in London.

Hamnet is interested in uncovering the humanness of William Shakespeare, before he became the towering figure he remains today, through focusing on the people closest to him.

In the book, the names ‘William’ and ‘Shakespeare’ are never used, emphasising every other part of who he was. After all, to his town, he would simply have been the disgraced glover’s son or the Latin tutor. To his children, he was their father and to Agnes, he was her husband.

If someone pieced together your life solely based on your interactions, relationships and reputation, what kind of story would they tell?

The Bible says: ‘Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did’ (1 John 2:6). Claiming to be in relationship with Jesus is not enough. Living as Jesus did will always be about people: he formed community by eating with people, healing people, listening to people, and restoring people with love, compassion and dignity. He ushered others into God’s story by first welcoming them to his side.

A friend of mine, in quoting a former pastor of his, once told me: ‘The Kingdom of God is built on relational lines.’ The truth of this statement holds with my experience and it’s evidenced by the reality that even this quote found its way to my heart via a friend of a friend, who may well have heard someone else say it.

The way I move in everyday life matters. Living out my faith is more than who I suppose I am or what other people see of me on a Sunday, at a practice or scrolling on Instagram. My faith as someone who loves Jesus, and my mission as someone commissioned to share the good news of his grace, power and forgiveness, is counted by discipleship in my whole life.

Where there is temptation to reduce following Jesus to an optional add‑on, I want to remember that the gospel asks me for something more: my whole self, fully alive in Jesus. It calls me to share with authenticity, consistency and a holy confidence that comes from who God is, rather than from who I or other people say I am.

From this place, evangelism is the natural overflow. It is no longer met in the pressure of a tick-box exercise or held to a self-set standard of perfection, but given through my presence as someone whose life is unmistakably different and bold in its witness to the love and light of Jesus.

In Hamnet, as Agnes and William move through their grief, they cling to each other with a stubborn commitment. Initially isolated by despair, their relational lines bind them to one another, ultimately transforming their marriage with new levels of truth, understanding and healing. In the same way, our commitment to living for others in Jesus’ name sets the relational lines of our lives ablaze with fresh hope, freedom and the possibility of something better.

So, as Hamnet continues to draw audiences into O’Farrell’s mystical imaginings of Stratford-upon-Avon, may we be drawn outward as people whose lives in all their ordinariness tell the extraordinary story of Jesus.

Reflect and respond

• What do your relationships say about you?
• When have you been tempted to compartmentalise following Jesus from the rest of your life?
• Pray for deeper connection, deeper courage and a deeper willingness to share the hope in Christ that you hold within you.