My Joshua Journal: His Name Is

My Joshua Journal: His Name Is

I was expecting my fourth child as a mother of three sons. At the time, I had a number of online friends who also had boys and only boys. One of them shared that she had prayed about the gender of the child she was expecting and her son then had a dream that she would have a girl. The ultrasound revealed that he was right. I decided to pray about my child’s gender, too. I knew I would be happy either way, but this time (for what I thought was for sure my last child), I wanted to know.

I prayed and opened my daily Bible to the date my ultrasound was scheduled. The passage for that day read:

Genesis 35:17
And as she was having great difficulty in childbirth, the midwife said to her, “Don’t despair, for you have another son.”

Now, I was pretty sure there wasn’t a passage in Scripture that said, “Guess what? You’re having a daughter!” But I was still so struck by the direct answer to my prayer that I believed come ultrasound day, I would learn that boy number four was joining our family.

The ultrasound technician confirmed what God had already told me through His Word.

That evening,  I had arranged to go out for dinner with my Bible study friends to give them the news. They were dying to know and not long after we were seated, a family with four boys  sat behind us. I just gestured to them and said that my family would look just like that. After my friends were sure that I wasn’t upset about not having a daughter, they began deciding what I should name our son.

I had given my three sons biblical names, so that made the decision easier for them. Names were written on a paper napkin and then the debate started. Finally, after much discussion, they told me his name ought to be Benjamin. As I considered this name, I thought about the Scripture God had given me predicting another son. When I got home, I read further in Genesis:

18 As she breathed her last—for she was dying—she named her son Ben-Oni. But his father named him Benjamin.

Of course, I hoped I wasn’t going to die in childbirth! But I knew that my son’s name would be Benjamin and that God had known him even before he was conceived.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

Want to know what a Joshua Journal is? Read the first installment here.

 

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