Friday, September 21, 2018

by name

Dear Nahum,


Not long ago, we met the sister of a friend. We had never met before, but on a lovely summer evening, she welcomed us into her back yard and fed us a wonderful meal. Her little girl, just a month or so younger than you, was crawling around the yard like a wild child, and making mealtime a much more interesting (read: challenging) venture than it is at our house.

At some point in the evening, I mentioned something about my last pregnancy in the conversation; I just assumed she knew I had been pregnant before and would not be surprised.

She followed up my comment with a question about you or about your birth. I don't remember what she asked, but Dad and I both remember that she called you by name. "Did Nahum....?"

It meant a lot to us that someone who had never talked to us about you before immediately used your name when she spoke about you.

She didn't call you:
"the baby" or
"your baby" or
"the child" or
dance around you altogether by referring to "your pregnancy" when she spoke to me. She talked about you as if she knew you. And I think she did "know you" in a sense, through the words of her brother. She was expecting a baby at the same time as me, and probably prayed along with us for you, although we didn't know that.

Just hearing your name from an almost-stranger's lips was a gift.

Mom


PS - If that meant a lot to us, imagine how much it means to us to know that the God of the universe knows you and calls you by name! 

"But now thus says the Lord, he who created you... 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.'"