I will never forget the night when I was eleven years old and I met God personally for the first time. As long as I can remember, I have known that God was real. What I mean by my first sentence is that He became more than someone I believed in on that night.
Ages 9 – 11 I spent many nights crying in my room wondering why I existed. My life did not feel like it was my own and I felt purposeless. Wake up, go to school, come home, watch a sibling’s sporting event, come home, cry, sleep. So went my daily life. Throw in the weekly church meetings and you got it.
My belief was that if I did not show up to school no one would notice. Life would go on. I was not making any difference.
Then, one night I cried out through the tears to God.
“If You are real, prove it to me. Because I don’t know why I am even here.”
I picked up my Bible and opened it to a seemingly random page. But, it was no accident the words that I read.
I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…
He answered. In that moment I knew God was more than a creator. He cared about me and truly was listening to me.
Fast forward fourteen years.
I find myself standing in a neo-natal unit of a hospital in Indonesia. Around me I count 10 babies some of which are only days old. They’re fighting for their lives. As I go around and pray for them I notice their names – Nyatha, Audrey, Christensen… I also notice three have yet to be named. A question nags at my heart, “Who will name them and how do I pray for these nameless babes?” Then a voice whispers,
“I knitted them together in their mother’s womb. They are known to me.”
And I see my eleven year old self crying in her bed all over again.
God knows their names just as much as He knew mine all those years ago. He has a plan for them. They are no accidents. No mistakes. They are beautiful and purposeful.
I don’t know what their parents will name them but I know the names God told me.
Michael Bethlehem / Gift of God, Fertile
Josiah Nathan / Jehovah has healed, God has given
Daniel Isaiah / God is my judge, Salvation of the Lord
Praise God from whom all blessings flow. May these children know Him who created them. He who knitted them together from the start. May they have lives full of known purpose from their first breaths to their last. Amen.
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