I was laying with Gregory tonight waiting for him to fall asleep and I found myself falling into a familiar line of thought. No, it wasn’t “how long is it going to take before I can sneak out of here” (although I will admit that is a somewhat familiar refrain as well) but rather I was thinking about how I view Gregory differently from Emma. Gregory seems so much less mine than Emma does, and he always has. Granted, none of my children are really mine, they are both gifts from God and their own persons and I can’t ultimately claim credit for or ownership of them. But somehow this is different with Gregory than it is with Emma. I have a sense that if he says yes and follows God’s Will, he is going to end up commited very strongly away from me. I’m not sure what this means, although I’ve felt it since he was born. Somehow I think this means more than the usual way that sons leave their mothers as they grow and begin their own lives.  I sometimes find myself playing a game of sorts, wondering what this means. Foreign missionary? Holy Orders? And in my more morbid moments, early death?

When I was pregnant with Gregory I remember reading the story of Hannah and Samuel for the first time (I’m a convert, remember) and I was really moved by it. I cried to think of this woman asking God for a child and then promising to return him to the Lord.

In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the LORD. And she made a vow, saying, “O LORD Almighty, if you will only look upon your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life, and no razor will ever be used on his head.”

I wasn’t entirely sure I understood why she would want to have this child if she was going to hand him back to the Lord, to be in His service at that temple for the rest of his life. I wasn’t sure I understood the point of it all, at least from her perspective. Sure, there’s the cessation of the social stigma from being considered barren, but I think there is far more to it than that. She’s participating in God’s Creation in an unique way, and I now think that it is far better to be able to join with God in this, even if she didn’t get the joy of raising her son to adulthood, than never to have done so at all.  Even though she knew she would have that incredible pain that comes of separating from her child, she still wanted to bring this child into the world.  Hannah ended up getting to keep Samuel for several years, raising him until he was old enough to be useful in the temple.  She also went on to have more children.  I wonder though, did she find herself treating Samuel differently than the others, because she knew she wouldn’t have him for as long?  Was she more patient with him, delighting in him more than the others?

I know I do that sometimes with Gregory, although I pray to see all my children with the same amount of wonder and amazement.