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

Sometimes God Reminds Me...

Sometimes, God reminds me it's not about me. my last post was intense, it was raw, and unfortunately it was real. i realize that all the people in my life aren't or weren't aware of many of those things until that post. i put it out there, selfishly, i needed to be free. even more selfishly though, there are very few people i could go in depth with to describe, explain, relive those experiences with.  i was humbled by the outreach i received from that post. of the love & support bestowed upon me by those i love...even those i haven't had the privilege to meet yet.
a first time visitor to my blog (Mandy) read it and used it. she was impacted because God chose to give me the life He did, the experiences that triggered that blog. she saw that i was using my blog, my random confessions as a form of catharsis. she took that back to her blog (this is why i love the blogosphere!) and she opened her comments section to anonymous confessions by asking readers to finish this sentence: "What if I told you....". if i'm honest with you, my first thoughts were incredibly conceited. i was a little excited that someone, and someone with a larger blog, chose my words to use and to take further. that vanity lasted only a few short moments, because then i began to read. and i began to cry. comments were pouring in, and they were heartbreaking. i don't think anyone involved expected the magnitude of confessions that ensued. but they were honest, and they were raw. and somewhere hopefully God was being let in to heal these weary souls. if you are a person that believes in prayer & healing, i urge you to pray for these people. if you're emotionally capable i ask you to visit Mandy's blog & read through the comments to pray specifically for each broken heart that has opened up these last few days and i ask you to do so judgment free.
if you are one of the people that needs an anonymous place to reveal a burden, i would greatly suggest using Mandy's open call for anonymity. it's cathartic, it's a sigh of relief, it's a place to see you're not alone.
because of so many things i went through as a child i had some serious issues growing up. one of those issues was depression. but so many people didn't know about so many parts of my life that they never understood why i was depressed, they didn't understand what was going on. the worst thing i ever heard...and i heard it *a lot* was, "there are people worse off than you". yup, it still makes me feel like crap. it is true that there are people out there going through things worse than myself...however, *they* didn't even know what i was going through at the time. all i needed was somewhere safe to let it all out. i never had that place...i was never allowed to be transparent. but Mandy has offered an open call. a safe place to let things go if you need to, to make a confession you might not otherwise make. i encourage you to stop by MandyThompson and let it out, or stop by and pray.
sometimes, God reminds me that i went through these things, that my life was not easy, for a reason. because He wanted to use me. because He wanted to show me that even a screwed up kid like me had a purpose in this world. that someday my story could help someone else...if only i'd let Him.
thank you all for your support, prayers, & love.