Relinquish...

This has been a really difficult post to write. I'm still not 100% sure I've said what I want to say in the correct way, but it gets my feelings across adequately for now, I think...


Hannah's story has always given me anxiety (1 Sammuel 1). While I know I want my children to belong to God, the thought of GIVING my child away makes me twitch. Always has. 
Let's fast forward. I have a friend that has this, cause (for lack of a better word), OneWord365. It's a challenge to not make a New Year's resolution & instead to ask God for a word for the year. A word to meditate on, to pray on, & to grow in. Last year my word was "Go" as my husband & I are feeling a serious pull to foreign missions. This year, I couldn't escape "Relinquish" which kind of ties into last year's word. Because how can you Go without first *letting go*, right? 
As many of you know, I suffered the loss of a sweet unborn baby last year. As we approach the due date of that lost baby I've been taken over by a sea of emotion. And while it has been an excruciatingly painful journey, I know I have never once been left alone with it. I've struggled, a lot, with trying to see exactly what lesson God had in all of this for me. Why? And I'm still not 100% sure, but something that keeps coming to mind is that these children of mine, were never MINE. That's a tough pill to swallow. Hannah was willing to literally HAND OVER her son, a son she begged & pleaded to God for. Not just to God, but literally into the hands of another person to guide that child & use him in God's will. I have prayed over my children, that God would use them to do His work. I have prayed that they would belong to Him. But the moment my unborn child's life was at stake, I prayed that this child would be mine, I needed this baby! I LOVED this baby! How could You want to take this from me?!? And I broke. My soul shattered the moment that loss was made permanent. Through my suffering & searching I was lead back to one of my favorite chapters in the Bible, Job 40 (the God smack down). And in these last few months, God whispered, "I LOVE YOU, Tricia. I'm here for you. I love this child too. Do you think you're more capable of love than I am?"
And then I broke again, but in a beautiful way because I broke into a wholeness, a completion. Because I KNOW God's love. And I know that there is no possible way for me to love a fraction of His love. But I want to! It still hurts, and I still find myself crying, grieving the loss of my child, but I know that God's love is so much more than my own. And I find a peace in that. 
And I look at my daughter now with new light, the fact that she's on loan is so much prevalent in my day to day. It is my responsibility to GIVE my children to God. You can't give a little bit of a person, it's all or nothing. It's a relinquishing of control that I only thought I possessed to begin with!  "My" children are God's, they always have been, I can only pretend they were ever mine at all. Or that I have any say as to what God has planned for their little lives. So I'm working on new prayers for her & her future sibling, for myself. That God would help me relinquish my hold & that I would wholeheartedly seek His will for them, to wholly hand them (back) over to the God I know is in absolute control! Hannah, who has been one of my least favorite stories in the Bible, has become so in my face I can't help but continue to pour over her story to gain understanding & peace.
This time in my life has also brought truth to some of my favorite worship songs & I find myself crying, singing, & praising in a new way...

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering 
Though there's pain in the offering 
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out 
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name
-Matt Redman

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say,
It is well, it is well with my soul.
- Horatio G. Spafford