I am so so so incredibly excited and proud to say that we have decided on a name for our precious little baby boy. The name Evelyn was so easy for us to pick, so I prayed that it would be the same for our boy. And after some time, prayers, and confirmation, our little babe has a name.
Let me tell you how we came, or more appropriately, how we were led to this name.
First, his middle name is Scott. My husband's middle name is Scott as well. This is a name near and dear to our hearts, because Michael's father's name is Scott. They lost him to leukemia when Michael was just a little boy in elementary school. We thought it would be a wonderful tribute to include Ezra's grandfather in his name.
Back in June, months before we would conceive our little miracle boy and months into our efforts to get pregnant, I had a dream. It was clear, crystal clear. I specifically heard the voice of God saying that we would have a boy named Ezra. I remember waking up and tucking the details of that dream in my heart, I knew The Lord had promised us our Ezra.
In the weeks that followed, I clung to that dream. I so wanted another child, and my heart at times grew weary in the wait. But, as I wrote in my previous post, The Lord specifically told us that we were going to conceive, not in our power, but in His. No medicine, no doctors, no fertility clinics. His glory, His power, His healing. He would be our helper. And another miracle would display God's glory and power.
So, three months after that prophetic dream, we found out we were pregnant. And I knew from day one that it was a boy. I recalled the dream of our promised boy, and I also just knew in my heart that I was carrying a boy. Many dreams followed, dreams that I was indeed having a boy. Even in prayer, I had a few of my spiritual mentors hear from The Lord that it was a boy. So, at our gender ultrasound, I was not shocked when they told us it was indeed a boy. I simply cried.
We looked up the meaning of the name. The Hebrew translation is "God helps." Umm, I almost fell over. That's when I truly knew that God gave us this name, He picked it, and He's had our little boy named long before he was a twinkle in our eye. Because months before, remember, God told us that He would be our helper in conceiving this baby.
And then I read through the book of Ezra. I never had paid much attention to it before, I knew he was an Old Testament prophet who told Nehemiah to rebuild the city walls. In those ten chapters, Ezra restores the altar and the foundations of the temple. The temple, the holy place where The Lord dwelled, had been in ruins for years.
Ezra 3:11-13
"With praise and thanksgiving they sang to The Lord 'He is good. His love toward Israel endures forever.' And all the people gave a great shout of praise to The Lord, because the foundation of the house of The Lord was laid. But many of the older priests and Levites and family heads, who had seen the former temple, wept aloud when they saw the foundation of this temple being laid, while many others shouted for joy. No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away."
Can you imagine? The old, who had remembered the temple, combined with the young, who were yearning to see a temple, to see the in-dwelling of God. Their prayers, intercession, and tears were seen and answered. The Lord sent them a priest, the prophet Ezra, to complete the task of restoration. I would have loved to have been there to see the great celebration of worship as people wept and shouted for joy. Just like the prophet Ezra brought restoration to the foundations, I believe God is raising up people to restore the foundations that we have today - a foundation that is cracked and splintered with religiosity, pride, hypocrisy, false teaching, left out teaching, tickle our ears sermons, and watered down Christianity. Revival is coming to believers, and I believe one way God will do this is through restorers of the foundations. And I believe our Ezra has that calling already weaved into his life. I am so excited to see how The Lord uses him. I know it will be great, and that I will treasure many things in my heart as I see our Ezra impact the generations.
I believe that just as John the Baptist was the voice calling out in the wilderness, preparing the way of the Lord, that our Ezra will be a voice calling out, preparing the way for our Lord's second coming, and turning the hearts of the people back to the Father.
