Those names probably don't ring a bell with you unless you've heard part of my testimony.
Nonetheless, they are very important to me. Especially on Mother's Day. See those names are my children's names. Yes. Those are their God-given names.
And while they may not sound familiar to you, each of them represents a very special promise.
Before I go any further, this is to be an encouragement for anyone who reads this. An encouragement that we don't always understand the things of God. An encouragement that things don't always look the way we feel they should. An encouragement that it doesn't always look the way we believed. And more than that, an encouragement that all we have to do is believe and rest in the unknown.
Ava Merritt. David Acha. Maggie Farrah.
Those are my children. I haven't met all of them yet, but I have seen them and their names have been spoken to me.
Well October always seems to be a wild spiritual time for me.
Last October was no different. Soon after we returned for my cousins wedding in Oregon, things started gearing up.
For some reason the Lord really finds joy in waking me up from a deep sleep to speak to me or to give me a dream or a vision that shakes me out of that deep sleep.
And to be honest, I am 100% okay with that. Matter of fact, I am thankful. I am so thankful He talks to me. I am so thankful I hear His voice. I am so thankful I know his voice. There's no other voice I'd rather hear.
Now unfortunately I didn't write these dates down, but I can tell you it was sometime around the third week of October.
One night during that week I was sleeping and I heard the Lord's voice. He spoke "Acha." And instantly I woke up. And instantly I asked "Lord what does that mean?" Because let's be honest, I am a country girl and I have never heard anything like that word in my life. So I was just as surprised as you are right now when the Lord spoke and said "that's your son's name."
Shew. Yes. Acha. Weird. I know. And knowing Jason Meads, I didn't share it with him, because, well, I could all but imagine his response to that name.
So I googled and searched for the meaning and I sat on the name and I held it in my heart. And I spoke it over and over again in my mind.
And then a funny thing happened a few days to a week later.
Again I was sleeping. This time the Lord gave me a dream. In the dream I was in labor and delivery. I was walking the hall and I was huge. And a tiny human stretched the upper left skin of my very pregnant body, to the point where I saw her precious face.
The little girl I saw was about 3 years old. She had a large square jaw like her daddy, a short blond bob hair cut and big blue eyes. As quickly as I saw her, the Lord spoke her name, "Farrah."
And it startled me and I instantly woke up. So did Jason. And he looked at me and he said "what was that?" And I said "I saw our next little girl." All the while still not telling him about Acha.
Well, a few weeks later I was pregnant. And I didn't know it.
And if you know anything about my testimony, you know the part where I have shared time and time again that God promised us twins in 2016.
Well before I even know I was pregnant, God came to me in a dream again. This time he showed me sharing my testimony in a video and so when I took the pregnancy test a few weeks later, I started praying about the video; How to make it, what it would look like and so on.
On Christmas Eve I filmed that video with the help of the sweetest cousin-in-law. And I fully intend to share it sometime, just not today, as it is a beautiful testimony to God's realness and goodness in my life.
So on January 8th I went for my first ultrasound. Jason trying to be supportive said, "I don't want you to get your hopes up and be disappointed if there is only one."
I told him there was no way there was only one.
Well there was. One perfect baby.
Imagine my surprise. The surprise of a girl who had just been told two names within a weeks time. The surprise of a girl who, on the day of her engagement, was prayed over and twins were prophesied. The surprise of a girl whose daughter gently kicked her belly and said "the babies are in there," an hour before she even took a pregnancy test.
Yes. The surprise of that girl. And also the deep hurt of that girl who only saw one perfect baby. Now listen, I am so thankful for the perfect life in my womb. I am so thankful for Maggie Farrah. I cannot wait to meet her. This is not about that. This is about the rollercoaster of feelings I was unprepared to handle when I only saw one perfect life. Joy. Pain. Grief. Excitement. And massive guilt for feeling all the things that weren't joy.
And so I did what any woman who has been promised a life did, I grieved. Which was so hard because I was still so thankful for the life in my womb. It was an incredibly tough mental space.
And I tried to hide it from my husband. Because let's be honest, no one will ever understand what it feels like when God personally makes you a promise and it doesn't look the way you thought it would.
And so when there was just one, I went through every scenario of how this other life would be part of my life. Was I pregnant with Farrah or an Acha?
I saw him first, so it had to be him. And when it was Farrah, I grieved his life. I told myself that he was the extra fluid that could've represented a miscarriage on the ultrasound. I went down every rabbit hole with his life. EVERY SINGLE RABBIT HOLE.
There isn't one explanation you could try to give me about his life that I haven't thought of, cried over or contemplated. Trust me.
And I did everything with his life but surrender it to the Lord. Until the day that I did that. And boy was there so much peace in that. Peace in the not having to know. Peace in releasing it to the Lord. Peace in the resting. Peace in rolling back the stone.
And that day was sometime in the winter, probably February. I was riding my exercise bike really early one morning, listening to an evangelist named Kent Christmas and he said something that deeply touched my soul.
He said something along these lines: I don't know what promise from God you've let stay in the grave, but you need to go back to the day you let the promise die, and you need to roll the stone away.
And so I did. I prayed for forgiveness and told the Lord I was sorry that I didn't believe in the promise of Acha. That I was sorry that I had given up. And I let it be.
A few weeks after that Jason and I were hanging out with some friends, saying our goodbyes to them as they got ready for a big move. We were praying and as my friend prayed for me, the Lord gave her a vision. In that vision she saw me praying for a bigger vehicle. She saw three carseats; two infant seats and a booster. She said I won't read into it, because this is what the Lord has show me. But she said there will be three.
And so I agreed. I received yet again, the promise that there would be three.
And I rested in the unknown. And I tried not to give it too much headspace.
Well last Sunday as I was listening to the sermon, I felt it in my spirit to just let Jesus know I was in agreement with the life of Acha. And so I told Him that. And as quickly as I told Him that, I saw Acha at about age 8, standing on the rock road beside our house. He was laughing and full of so much joy.
A few minutes after that, Pastor Hans told a story. The story he shared was about Abraham and Sarah. And how God went to visit Abraham and Sarah was evesdropping when God told Abraham they would have a son. When Sarah heard God say she would be a mother, she laughed. And when their son was born, they named him laughter.
And so Acha means life and promise. It's not a name that I had ever heard prior to the Lord speaking it to me in October. And it is 100% not a name that I would ever pick. But his name means promise and he is a promise. And I've seen him laughing. And as a mother, I can tell you, when you see your not yet son laughing, you don't forget it.
So on this Mother's Day, I've chosen to celebrate all three promises the Lord has given me, knowing that I won't always understand all of the things of God or even the timing of God.
It's honestly freeing to know I don't have to figure it out. I just have to agree.
And I want to encourage you. I don't know what promises the Lord has made to you concerning children, but if in times of hurt or despair or great grief you have laid those promises in the grave and left the stone there, because it just simply hurts too much and because it just didn't make sense, I want to encourage you to roll the stone away.
Let fresh air in that grave. Be open to the truth that God can breathe life into any situation.
And I want to encourage you to find people of faith who will speak life over your promise and stand with you in the mystery. Because we simply just will not always understand.
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