Simply Stated: His Name

During the whirlwind of 2 days, Colby and I had zero time to talk about what to name our baby boy. Friends asked, Auntie Paige was trying to get things monogrammed :) , but we didn’t have a clue! We had talked about a few boy names and a few girl names during the process, but we also weren’t sure what child we were going to get, as we made no gender or race preferences, and wanted the name to be both meaningful and to “fit”.

So, we decided we’d save that conversation for the airport and on the airplane. While on a layover, we literally googled baby boy names and started with the A’s scrolling through. This became rather entertaining as there are some hilarious names out there…bless their hearts!

We started a list on a piece of paper with the names we had previously discussed that we liked, and then listed out options for the middle name in a separate column. We also had discussed that it was important for us to involve our birthmother with making a name decision. We thought it would be quite meaningful for child to have a name from our family and then a name from hers. We didn’t know if that meant leaving the door wide open and allowing her to name him, or picking a few options and then letting her pick.

In the days that lead up to us arriving in Florida, we were updated frequently by our case worker who gave us news on our birthmother and our son’s progress. It ended up that she was going to be discharged at 24 hours and that he would wait until the 48 hour mark on Saturday, so we found out that we wouldn’t be meeting our birthmother until the following Monday after placement had already happened. Well, that was disappointing, as we had to have a name for paperwork signing before even meeting him!

But that’s when God showed us He indeed had another plan and knew exactly what we were supposed to name our son.

I asked Colby, how about Eli? Do you like that? He said he did like it and so we added it to the list. Colby was working on rearranging and writing out possibilities and I sat on the airplane with my mind racing a mile a minute with thinking of all the necessities we needed to pack for the hospital the next day.

Then all of a sudden, I asked Colby for the pen and wrote down our birthmother’s first name and circled Eli in the very center of it. Colby looked at me, and said, “That’s it.” I agreed and immediately asked Colby where Elijah was in the Bible. He had his Bible in his carry-on so he got it out and started flipping through. He then stopped me and told me, “You aren’t looking for Elijah, you are looking for Eli from 1 Samuel.

At that point the tears were flowing (again!) when I quickly realized who Eli was. Colby turned to 1 Samuel and I reached for my carry-on where I had a book that has been very special to me throughout the journey to parenthood and dealing with infertility, called Hannah’s Hope.

Eli is the priest that overheard Hannah, a barren woman, pray in the temple as she threw herself before the Lord in anguish as she asked for a child. Eli thought she was drunk that her prayer was so desperate. He realized her sorrow and said “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant the petition that you have put before Him.” 1 Samuel 1:17

It was after this that Hannah went home and the scripture states that the Lord remembered her. She then gave birth to Samuel, her son, whom she raised until he was weaned at the age of two. She then took Samuel back to the temple and gave Samuel to Eli to be raised by him in service to the Lord.

I opened my book Hannah's Hope by Jennifer Saake and read to Colby a paragraph that I had recently read in my quiet time, where she narrates the scene in 1 Samuel and what Hannah was experiencing.

“This face did not match his preconceived ideas of the woman who had been prostrate on the temple floor. Eli had expected hardness etched by a life of sin. Instead he was stunned by strange beauty, tainted with raw grief, yet softened by a radiant grace. What could cause these haunting eyes to look so troubled when her face could almost be described as glowing? The priest recalled descriptions of Moses' countenance after meeting with the Lord on Mount Sinai. True worshipers were rare those days, but she surely was one. While questions swirled through his mind, Eli realized he didn't need to give or receive answers nearly as much as he needed to acknowledge her obvious anguish and share with her in committing this pain to the Lord. Her sincere faith demanded the touch of a great God. He prayed the Lord might use him to offer this woman a fresh start. What joy to minister peace to a hurting heart!"

Wow. What a woman of faith Hannah was and what a great God He is that hears our prayers.

We immediately felt the Holy Spirit covering us and the prayers of all of the friends and family that were praying for us. At that point, we looked out the window and saw the lights of Tampa, and landed 10 minutes later. The Lord had spoken to us clearly about His perfect plans for us and our petition had been granted, for we would meet our son Eli the next day. It was at this time that we were no longer worried about our birthmother signing the paperwork or any other glitch in the details, as God had been preparing this blessing just for us long before.

And so we smiled and exited the plane, and were filled with God’s amazing presence and grace as we were to meet our sweet son Eli the next morning. We selected Shane for his middle name, as that is Colby’s middle name, and Colby’s father’s middle name. And now he had a meaningful name from both our family and his birthmother, that there’s no way we could have perfectly picked it ourselves.

Colby waiting to board the plane to Florida, as he's scrolling through names