"Instead of ... Replacement"

When we received the names of our three Ethiopian children, we asked what each of them meant. F means "Easter". A means "beautiful flower". And K means "instead of/replacement". His name was a little puzzling to our agency director who is Ethiopian. She said you would usually see this name if an older child or father had died. But since F is a year older than K, there are no other birth children, and their father is still alive, she wasn't quite sure why this name would have been given.

Well over the weekend, I was thinking back to the baby I miscarried the year before I had Kaden. I wondered if it was a boy or girl and how he or she would have fit into this whole mix of little ones we'll have in our home. And then I realized that K's birth date is just days after when my due date for this baby was. And with this realization, I had a new perspective on "instead of/replacement". I don't know what K was replacing in his birth family's life, but in mine he is replacing a blessing I wasn't prepared for over 4 1/2 years ago.

Something I recently heard and have been processing through is that our calling in life is to become fully mature in Christ. And the reason He wants us to become fully mature, is so that we are ready to receive the inheritance and blessing He has for us here on earth, so that we might bless the nations. I am humbled that He has prepared and tested and matured my heart over these past years. What was once a blessing I cried over is now a blessing I am rejoicing over.

And so, in yet another way, God has confirmed beyond a doubt that these three children are all mine. A, the toddler girl he wrote on our hearts two years ago. F, the wild boy I began sensing would join our family, as soon as we opened our hearts to bringing home two. And K, my replacement blessing - the mark that my heart is maturing in Him.

He didn't say this road or calling would be easy, convenient, or pain free. But He has shown us that it is about getting our hearts slowly, but surely a little more like His. Thank you Lord for the joy of these three blessings that you now feel I am ready to receive.

For you are great and do marvelous deeds;
you alone are God.
Teach me your way, O LORD,
and I will walk in your truth;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.
I will praise you, O Lord my God, with all my heart;
I will glorify your name forever.
~Psalm 86:10-12