I Prayed for This Child

"I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over the the LORD." 
 1 Samuel 1:27-28

I hear and see this verse a lot... often in birth announcements or written on the wall of a nursery... "for this child I prayed."  After seeing this on a friend's blog, I looked up the verse in my Bible.  I'm always curious what comes before and after so many of the verese we quote in popular phrases.  Though I'm sure at some point in my Bible college career I knew this full story, but this day, I had forgotten.  I read back to the beginning of 1 Samuel.  It says in verse 5, "the Lord had closed her womb."  For years (we don't know how long), Hannah prayed that God would bless her with a child.  But she went one step further... if He would grant her this one request, she would then give that child back to the Lord.

I can relate to Hannah.  For years, I prayed that God would give us a child.  I prayed, begged, and pleaded to God that He would allow Sean and I to hold His creation of love in our arms.  And like Hannah, I promised God that if he would just grant us a child, I would do all I could to bring him or her up in the ways of the Lord.  Like Hannah, God granted our request.  He blessed us with a child.  I was blessed to get the chance to tell my husband I was pregnant.  I was blessed to feel our daughter move inside of me-- Sean even got to feel her move a couple of times!  I am blessed with the title, "Mommy" and my husband with the title, "Daddy."  

But unlike Hannah, my choice in giving her over to the Lord came long before I held her in my arms.  That choice came on the fateful day of our "half way" ultrasound.  The day we found out something was wrong.  As our doctors advised us and reminded us time and time again to terminate, we were faced with the decision... in whose hands would we place our daughter?  To whom would we dedicate her short but precious life?