Grace, God's Grace

As I stated in my previous post, Psalm 139 was our “theme” verse. And at about week 13 when I still hadn’t miscarried and my whole attitude began to shift to one more accepting of the situation, there was another theme that held me together: God’s grace. People around me, good well-deserving people, were having miscarriages. And me, the person not ready, willing, or wanting was carrying a perfect, healthy baby. If there’s ever a time you can clearly hear God speaking, this would be it. He had a purpose in this, he had a plan for this baby, he WANTED her to be here. There is absolutely no denying that. His grace brought her into this world and kept her here safe and sound, developing healthy and strong. His grace gave me the strength to endure this time, and His grace believed in me and saw me as capable enough to go with through with everything. His grace knew that in the end I would be a much better and happier person because of everything. His grace was woven through every part of this experience and became my hope, my light in a place that was so often very dark.

January 11: I have just told Liz and Eric that they are about to be parents and the agency gave us celebration invites for the three of us to enjoy lunch at Bardenay. At one point in our conversation I asked them if they had thought of any names. They told me they knew what they wanted her middle name to be, if was ok with me. Of course anything they picked would be ok with me, within reason of course ;) And nothing could’ve prepared me for what the name they had in mind. They told me they would like her middle name to be Lindsay. It was so unexpected that I think it took a good minute for it to register in my brain. I was blown away! We all teared up and I told them I would be honored and they could use my name on one condition: it had to be spelled with an –Ay. Then they told me they had a couple first names in mind. The last name they shared was Grace. My face immediately lit up, that was it! That had to be her name! Of course, they were still thinking and I didn’t want to sway them one way or the other because she was their daughter so I did my best to hide all of my excitement and wishes and 3-4 weeks later they informed me of her name….Grace Lindsay.

There couldn’t have been a more perfect name for little Grace. Her name holds more meaning than anybody could ever know. And through my journal that I plan to give Grace I have done my best to portray to her the meaning and significance of her name. I hope she will always know how special and unique she is and that her name is more than just a name; it is representative of her whole life and the God we serve. I love this part of the story because it serves as yet another testament to God’s plan for Eric and Liz to be in my life and be Grace’s parents.