Before my first son was born God put the name Nehemiah on my heart.
I studied the whole book of Nehemiah to find out what this man was all about. He was a faithful leader and great example of a prayer warrior. I knew that I would one day have a son and this would be his name and he would grow to be faithful in these things too.
In 2013 I became pregnant with a little boy whom I thought would be named Nehemiah… But a tragedy had hit our church and our city which the name Nehemiah was strongly involved in, we couldn’t bring ourselves to give our son this tainted name. And so, Elias was born, meaning Jehovah is God.
Fast forward to 2015, My family started going through the hardest and most painful time of our lives.. In the midst of this I became pregnant and went through the most emotionally painful and lonely pregnancy of my life. But this child kept me living.
Now that a couple years had passed and the memory and stigma of the name Nehemiah had faded, I knew that God still intended for me to have a son named Nehemiah. Named after the faithful leader and prayer warrior of the Bible. Because of this, I knew he was a boy before I ever found out. And so, Nehemiah was born.
What really gets me is that I had completely forgotten the meaning of his name, so I looked it up again. Nehemiah: Comforted by YAHWEH… Wow… Through one of the most painful times of my life, that’s exactly what God did, he comforted me.
Do you know what this means?? In 2013, while I was “happily” married and living behind the blinded lens of a codependent type of love, God knew what was coming. I was completely blindsided by the destruction of my marriage, but God knew. I didn’t know that my whole life as I knew it was about to fall apart, but God knew.
Not only did he know, but he went ahead of me and prepared the way, and he used the worst time of my life for my good! That trial and intense pain brought me out of denial and opened me up for the change that sent me to a Christ-centered recovery program called Celebrate Recovery. God was telling me in 2013 that He knew what I was going to go through, and He was going to be there to comfort me.
And he doesn’t just do that for me, but He will do that for you too. You might be sitting in one of the most painful times of your life right now where you don’t know how to live through it any longer. You’re here for a reason because God knew. God knew you would be here in this place today to hear my story and He’s saying that he has a hope and a purpose for your life too. You can’t see it now, but He knows. He is already in the future where he has prepared good things for you in advance.
Peace and Grace,
