And her name is…

And her name is…

Our baby girl arrived on June 14th, just a day before her due date. If you want to hear her birth story, that will be for a later post. So many sent us messages in anticipation of baby girl’s name. It brought us such joy to welcome her to this world and to officially share her name!

Hannah Elizabeth

Just a few days after finding out I was pregnant, we began praying over the name for this precious life. We had a boy’s name on reserve. However, a meaningful name for a girl didn’t come as easily. Even before we found out that I was actually carrying a girl, we knew in our heart of hearts that we would have a little girl to hold. Elizabeth as the middle name was a given, but we struggled to come up with anything else.

Grace, Graciella…these names kept coming to mind and were often on our lips as we brainstormed. We liked them, and we even tried speaking them over my belly. Laughing through all the names we didn’t like, we kept coming back to Grace and Graciella, but they weren’t exactly right nor did they flow as easily as we thought. We made a list of women of the Bible and began scratching off. Only one name remained on our list – Hannah (Ana in Spanish). And guess what?! Hannah means “grace”/”favor from God”. That was it! It was settled from an early date that our little baby was 1) a girl and 2) named Hannah.

Over the weeks to come, God confirmed much in her name. He had graciously given us a child. We do not take this for granted. There are so many who suffer loss or grieve for never having yet held a child. During a pandemic and much economic turmoil in the world, He had provided the time for us to be together as a family and provided for all our needs and now desires, to have another child.

When I arrived at the hospital for my 20 week ultrasound appointment, I was kindly greeted by a nurse named…guess what?! Hannah. I couldn’t help but chuckle when she introduced herself. Remember, at this point we still didn’t know the gender. The nurse was going to prepare the blue/pink baseballs for our gender reveal the coming weekend. I asked her not to share the gender with me during the ultrasound, but to put the correct baseball in a box for me to take home so I could be surprised with my husband and family. (I had purchased baseballs filled with blue and pink dust. The nurse had to remove the colored string from the baseball indicating the gender and dispose of the other ball.) The nurse was so nervous about getting it wrong and baby wasn’t cooperating much during the ultrasound (maybe a foretaste of life with this little girl). She kept saying, “I hope I pulled the right string off the ball” as she hesitantly handed me the box. Thankfully, she also handed me an envelope with a ultrasound photo that we could open later – as the double-confirmation of the gender.

It was no surprise to us though when I threw the baseball to Franklin, he hit it and it exploded PINK! Opening the envelope, the photo confirmed, we were anticipating a BABY GIRL! As you know from my previous post, I was a little nervous to have a girl (which is a thing of the past now that she is in my arms). But, I couldn’t have been more excited to give this child her name.

So, let us talk a little about Hannah (the Hannah of the Bible). (I recently heard an awesome sermon by John MacArthur that tells a lot about the life of Hannah and her relationship with her heavenly Father. Linked here for your enjoyment: https://www.gty.org/library/sermons-library/80-41/hannah-a-godly-mother.)

Notes from 1 Samuel, Chapter 1:

• Hannah was a faithful wife, but her womb was closed
• Hannah was faithful to her Lord and faithfully brought her request to bear a child to Him
• Hannah was teased and falsely spoken of, but she did not retaliate, yet continued to bring her situation to the Lord
• Hannah trusted the Lord’s grace and favor to her, even when she was grieved and in anguish
• Hannah was given the desire of her heart, she named her child as for the favor she had been given and gave her child completely to the Lord – “After he was weaned, she took the boy with her, young as he was, along with a three-year-old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and brought him to the house of the Lord at Shiloh. When the bull had been sacrificed, they brought the boy to Eli, and she said to him, “Pardon me, my lord. As surely as you live, I am the woman who stood here beside you praying to the Lord. 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 to the Lord.”

Hannah’s Song/Prayer is then recorded in 1 Samuel, Chapter 2:

Then Hannah prayed and said:

“My heart rejoices in the Lord;
    in the Lord my horn is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
    for I delight in your deliverance.

“There is no one holy like the Lord;
    there is no one besides you;
    there is no Rock like our God.

“Do not keep talking so proudly
    or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the Lord is a God who knows,
    and by him deeds are weighed.

“The bows of the warriors are broken,
    but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
Those who were full hire themselves out for food,
    but those who were hungry are hungry no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children,
    but she who has had many sons pines away.

“The Lord brings death and makes alive;
    he brings down to the grave and raises up.
The Lord sends poverty and wealth;
    he humbles and he exalts.
He raises the poor from the dust
    and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
    and has them inherit a throne of honor.

“For the foundations of the earth are the Lord’s;
    on them he has set the world.
He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,
    but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.

“It is not by strength that one prevails;
those who oppose the Lord will be broken.
The Most High will thunder from heaven;
    the Lord will judge the ends of the earth.

“He will give strength to his king
    and exalt the horn of his anointed.”

There is no one like our God and no one greater who guards his faithful ones. We could not desire anything more for our daughter, but that she would bear the Hannah of the Bible’s same character of godliness and faithfulness. We know that her very existence is evidence of His favor, grace and faithfulness to us. We pray our Hannah will grow, come to understand and bear fruit as a strong, fearless, godly, faithful, confident woman who trusts her Lord so much to dedicate all she has been given to His work and glory.

Our dear Hannah, you are chosen, you are loved, you are the Lord’s.