Waiting

There are only 9 days left until Charlotte's due date, and I can simply describe my life with one word - waiting. Nothing new is going on with our little one, she is still peacefully content in her accomodations, so I wait. While I am waiting, I thought I'd share how Brendan and I came about the name for our daughter, Charlotte Grace.

Charlotte - Charlotte was my mother's name. She passed away 4 years ago, and I have always felt a strong desire to honor her by naming our first daughter after her. Which leads to little Charlotte's middle name...

Grace - While Brendan and I think Grace is a beautiful name, the story behind it is far more beautiful. I was blessed to have parents and family who raised me to love God and believe in who He says He is in the Bible. When I was 11, I recognized my need for a Savior and that I needed to accept the free gift of grace that God, through His son Jesus, offered to me. But it wasn't until many years later that I fully experienced God's grace in my life.

During college, I decided that I really didn't need God in the everydayness of my life. Even though I never said it outloud, I believed I was in control of my life and that I could deal with the consequences of my actions....and my actions weren't glorifying the God I had placed my faith in when I was 11. In truth I was running from God, but God never stopped pursuing me. During my junior year, I found out that my mom had been struggling with an addiction to prescription medications for 10 years and more recently with alcoholism. This blew my world apart. And because I wasn't trusting God, I started trying to control things myself....I was going to fix my mom and I was going to keep my family together (my parent's had decided to get a divorce).

For about 3 years my mom's addiction continued. I knew my mom had placed her faith in Christ and I had seen the evidence of it in her life, but the worse her addiction got the more frustrated I became at her for not "fixing" herself. In hindsight I can see that she wasn't trusting God to be bigger than her temptations and sins, but at the time I was just angry that she was hurting me and many others who she loved. At a point, I finally gave up and decided that I couldn't possibly love my mother any more. I had tried to fix things, I had asked God to fix things (my way, of course), but I didn't see that God was doing something much bigger than I could imagine.

In the summer of 2005, my mom's body finally lost the battle with her addictions, and she died. This was not the fix I had prayed for. And even though I knew my mother had accepted Christ, I spent 3 days after her death believing that there was no way she could be in heaven. I believed her sins were too great and that God couldn't have possibly forgiven her for all the pain she had caused. I finally cried out to the Lord for answers. Crying in bed and asking God to explain why things had ended up the way they had, God spoke clearly to me and got my attention! I can't remember the exact words but I heard something like this, "Anne, you are just as much a sinner as your mom was. Her sins were no greater because they seemed big to you or hurt you. You both need my grace, and I will never take it away from you." Wow! I got it! I was just as much a sinner as my mother, but God wasn't going to take away his grace from me...or her. I can't really explain the peace and understanding that flooded my soul at that point. (Really, you'll only be able to understand that peace when you've experienced God's grace for yourself and placed your faith in Christ as your Savior.) It was in that moment when I heard the Lord speak that I turned my life back over to Him. I stopped running from Him and started running toward Him.

God used something ugly and painful - my mom's death - for me to experience something beautiful and life-changing - His grace. Brendan and I want our daughter's name to carry that meaning with it.