**This is another installment of a lifelong story God is unfolding in our lives about our future children. To catch yourself up, check out a few of my previous posts: "Another Anniversary" and "Buying a Field- Part I" !
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About 6 months into our journey of trying to have children,
Jordan and I were driving around the streets of Anchorage (we lived there for
two years), and discussing baby names.
Since the beginning of my memory, I have had a girl’s name picked out
that I have loved forever: Natalie Jean.
Natalie is just a name I love, and Jean is my middle name and my
mother’s. So when Jordan and I started
dating, I jokingly told him our future daughter would definitely be named
Natalie and he was just going to have to get on board!
But on this
day, Jordan suggested the name Leeland for a boy. We first heard of the name because it’s the
name of one of our favorite Christian bands.
Leeland Chase. Chase is Jordan’s
middle name. I fell in love with
it. And then we kind of tabled that
discussion for the next 15 months.
When we found
out we were pregnant for the second time, we brought up the name Leeland to our
friends we were visiting in California.
They asked me what the name meant, and I was surprised I hadn’t even
looked it up yet! Sitting there on the
couch, I grabbed my phone and Googled “Leeland.” The first site that popped up said Leeland
meant “pastureland.” I thought to
myself, “that can’t be right. That’s really boring!” So I looked at another site and it said “meadowland.” Again, I thought, “Really, Lord? A meadow?
That’s not exciting or beautiful at all!”
And in one split second, the Lord spoke to me. “Amy, Leeland means field.”
I dropped my phone, and started crying. My friends stared at me, wondering what the
heck just happened to me!
Leeland means field.
God asked me to buy a field this year.
I made the sacrifice. He brought
the promise.
And if I had looked up the meaning of Leeland 15 months ago
when we first talked about the name, it would not have nearly the same meaning
or impact.
Oh Lord, I am in awe…
complete awe of the way you work in my life!
How you knit all the details together, and reveal Yourself at just the
right times! You reminded Jeremiah after
his prayer to you in chapter 32, verse 27: “I am the Lord, the God of all the
peoples of the world. Is anything too hard for me?”
And You make this
promise:
“I
will certainly bring my people back again from all the countries where I will
scatter them in my fury. I will bring
them back to this very city and lead them in peace and safety. They
will be my people, and I will be their God. And
I will give them one heart and one purpose: to worship me forever, for their
own good and for the good of all their descendants. And I will make an everlasting covenant with
them: I will never stop doing good for them.
I will put a desire in their hearts to worship me, and they will never
leave me. I will find joy doing good for
them and will faithfully and wholeheartedly plant them in this land.
This is what the Lord says: Just as
I have brought all these calamities on them, so I will do all the good I have
promised them. Fields will again be bought and
sold in this land about which you not say, ‘It has been ravaged by the
Babylonians, a desolate land where people and animals have all
disappeared. Yes, fields will once again be
bought and sold—deeds signed and sealed and witnessed—in the land of
Benjamin and here in Jerusalem, in the towns of Judah and in the hill country,
in the foothills of Judah and in the Negev, too. For someday I will restore prosperity to
them. I, the Lord, have spoken!”
(Jeremiah 32:37-44, emphases mine)
For the next three months, I prayed over the name Leeland
and this testimony God was revealing to me.
Could our baby really be a boy?
For years, Jordan and I had always pictured our children as girls. At least the first one. Through many many dreams we both had, God had shown us we would have a
daughter. Never had we even thought of a
son.
Slowly, I began to accept that God really could be giving us
a son and started boldly sharing this with friends who asked what gender I
thought the baby could be. I wasn’t
afraid to admit that God told me I’d have a son. His name would be Leeland. He was the field God promised me.
But Jordan remained hopeful through this entire time that
the baby could still be a girl. I don’t
want this to sound like he didn’t have the same faith I did… I actually think he had more faith in these moments, as
he clung onto promises we heard from God long before we even got pregnant! I would laugh every time I told someone the
baby would be a boy and he would immediately chime in, “OR a girl!”
So you can imagine my shock and surprise when the ultrasound
technician revealed to us that our baby was in fact a girl!
I was SO SURPRISED.
What about this testimony, Lord?
What about the field? Was I just
totally OFF? How did I miss the mark that bad?
Have you ever had a moment like this when you thought you
clearly heard one thing from God and it turned out to be the complete opposite?
Over the past several months, through more prayer and
sanctuary time with the Lord, I have received so much peace from God and here
is the message on repeat He has been giving me:
“I AM in control, Amy.
I am always in control. Someday,
there will be a son… a Leeland. But
Natalie’s little life is a testament to my faithfulness,
goodness, and sovereignty in your life.
I make the decisions. I have had
this little girl ready to enter your world forever. She
is my gift to you, my child. She is my promise to you that you will even
have more than one child!”
I have been overwhelmed
by God’s power and control in my life. Praise
God that I do not have to have all the answers figured out, and I am not meant
to know the future! I just have to trust
that God’s plans for my future, my children’s future, and our future together
as a family are amazing! They’re already
laid out… the blueprint has been drawn.
Hallelujah!
Bring on the fields, Lord.
I am ready!
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