What's in a name?

Denise and I talked about names alot while she was pregnant, as I'm sure most parents do. We believe that someone's name is a significant thing, since it is something that will always be a part of who our child is. You can also see the significance of names in Scripture, the various names of God that each describe a particular facet of who He is, the times where God changed a person's name at a transformational time in their lives etc. A lot of parents focus on if they like the name, will the child get made fun of later in life because of the name and so on. While we obviously thought about those things as well, we also wanted our baby's name to reflect who God had made him/her to be. It is an awesome thing to be able to name another person... So we talked about a lot of different names and looked at their meanings as well. Hayden has a few different origins, including German, English and Welsh. The one we feel best describes our baby boy is the Welsh origin which means "fire" . Samuel is obviously a biblical name and has a Hebrew origin. It has several possible meanings which include: "his name is God", "God heard" and "God's heart" We feel like God has put a fire in Hayden's heart for Him and we identify with several different aspects of the Samuel in scripture. First the passion of his mother, Hannah, to have a child even though God had closed her womb. She prayed for a child and God heard her cry and answered. When she named him Samuel, she said:"because I asked the Lord for him". She also had made a vow that if God gave her a son, she would give him back to God to serve Him. After he had been weaned, she took him to the temple and said this to the priest: "I prayed for this child, and the LORD has granted me what I asked of him. So now I give him to the LORD. For his whole life he will be given over to the LORD." And he worshiped the LORD there." There is also the part of Samuel's life where God calls to him three times before he realizes that is God speaking to him, and he begins to have a connection with God that was rare in those days. When we decided that we wanted to have children, we assumed that it would happen almost right away, but it didn't. As some of you know, we eventually found out that Denise was having some problems with her pituitary gland which was affecting her hormones etc. and was able to be treated with medication. However for a while we didn't know what was going on and we prayed often that God would bless us with children, and many people joined with us on different occasions to believe for God's best plan for our lives. During this time one of the most significant things God showed us was that we should not focus so much on what a child would do for us, how it would enrich our lives etc. but to focus on how we could invest in our children and help them to be all that they could be. So in our hearts we say, the Lord has answered our prayer and we give him to the Lord. We also believe that Hayden will have a special relationship with God and will be able to communicate God's heart to people that don't necessarily know God's heart for them.