When God speaks
Prior to finding out the gender of our baby, my husband had a strange prophesying moment while we were in church one day. He claims that he was praying to know more about the destiny of our child, and God spoke to him in that moment. God told him that we were having a boy and his name would be Jonah. When Brad shared this with me, I laughed at him because he’s not the kind to prophesy. I’ve been with my husband for 15 years and he’s never told me about a moment when God spoke to him in such a way. But the fact that God spoke to him vs. myself makes me believe it to be true. Brad (my husband) wasn’t a fan of the name Jonah, and neither was I.
I held my breath at our gender reveal the minute our girls bit into the cake pops. It’s a BOY! My husband celebrated with popping bottles of champagne (eye roll) as I stood there in disbelief for a moment. Mind you, this was a very different reaction from how he celebrated Paityn’s (my daughter) gender reveal. It’s okay though, he’s longed for a boy since the start of our marriage. Of course, I was excited and happy for him but a little nervous at the thought of raising a son. I’m a girl mom, I have two girls. So this is going to be very different than what I’m used to. It took a couple days for the high of the excitement and nerves to settle. But once they did, it was time to discuss names.
When God is being Obvious...
We began to discuss names, and Brad brought up the name Jonah again. I had no interest and continued to dismiss the name. Okay, I’m going to compare the name to car shopping. When you’re car shopping and you finally set your mind on the type of car you’re interested in buying, don’t you just start seeing that car everywhere? So now that the name had come up a few times, it’s as if it was suddenly being displayed everywhere! The show Ozark (the son’s name is Jonah), hearing someone at daycare calling out the name, amongst so many other things.
What really caught my attention is when I was leaving church one day after a meeting. It was a pausing moment where I had to stop and take it in, and then take a photo to send to Brad. The TV screen in the lobby displayed the name Jonah notifying the viewers that the next series that our church was going to discuss was on the Jonah chapter in the Bible. For the next 5 weeks after, our church sermon’s were all on the chapter of Jonah and the story of his life. This is when I threw my hands up in the air and said “fine, Lord. This will be his name.”
Jonah and the Whale
Now, names don’t have to match the theme of a child’s bedroom. But it’s something I wanted for him as a reminder of what God did for Jonah at sea and what God can do for him. Even in Jonah’s weakest moment of turning away from God’s presence, God was gracious and merciful and saved Jonah by providing a whale to keep him from drowning at sea. If you don’t know Jonah’s story, I’d urge you to read more about it.
There’s already an interesting calling on my son’s life just by how his name was revealed to us. As we go through this new parenting journey of raising a boy into a man, I just can’t help but wonder what God will do next and why he insisted that we give our son the name, Jonah.
