Stephen and Courtney

Stephen and Courtney

Friday, September 1, 2017

Who Are You?

Many years ago Stephen and I went through years of infertility.  If you have been through that journey or are in it now I am sorry.  I know the loneliness, fear, and pain that shows up every day.  I know it feels forever.  We went through several doors and then backed up and closed them before the Lord led us to the path that gave us our kids.  After a particularly hard treatment I was waiting to find out if we were pregnant.  I was praying one afternoon... when I say praying I mean pleading with the Lord to give us a baby.  I was reading that the Lord does not give us a spirit of fear.  I was fearing.  So I opened the Greek dictionary to look up fear.  As I searched the page my eyes immediately came to the word grace instead.  I sat reading the definition of grace and thinking about His character.  I saw that the Greek word for grace was Charis.
Short Definition: grace, favor, kindness
Definition: (a) grace, as a gift or blessing brought to man by Jesus Christ, (b) favor, (c) gratitude, thanks, (d) a favor, kindness.

I got up and sent an email to my mom and Stephen's mom asking them to change their prayer.  We prayed that in God's charis he would give us Charis.  

A week later I found out that the Lord had blessed us with a pregnancy.  We rejoiced in His charis.  Fast forward to an 18-week sonogram and I asked the PA to take a guess on the gender of our twins.  She quickly found Drew and told me it was a boy.  Then she moved to the next baby and told me it was another boy.  I timidly responded that I think that is the same baby and she assured me it wasn't.  I knew it was.  I would have been ecstatic to have two boys but I knew that was the same baby.  A few weeks later we saw the doctor and she confirmed a boy... and a girl.  We knew her name would be Charis.  

I often tell Charis the origin of her name in Greek and that she is our "gift from the Giver".  She loves that part of who she is.  One day when she was little she sat in a box and yelled "Look, I am a gift from the Giver"!  The other day I was putting something on her desk and saw her name tag.  She had written her name and then "gift from the giver".  I pray she remembers who she is as she gets older.  When the world, classmates, boys, or circumstances tell her something else I pray she is rooted in Jesus and remember that she is always our Gift from the Giver.  

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