A Name

And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. – John 4:16

I decided many years ago after reading Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven Life that perhaps I should volunteer at Huntington Hospital in the NICU as a parent counselor.  The idea was that God does not “waste a hurt” and often the trials we endure are meant to help us to help others who someday face the same trial. Since my son had spent eight weeks in the NICU after he was born and it was, to say the least, the longest eight weeks of my life, I decided I could help serve there.

My intentions were pure but, looking back on it now, I had it all wrong.  I had already taken on a self-centered role as “helper” and/or “rescuer”.  Instead of focusing on how to just listen to people in need, I was already trying to figure out how I could give advice, or offer faith, or encourage them and give them strength, all in the midst of a situation that I had no control over and neither did they.  In other words, I had not yet realized how I could just love them in the purest of ways, just by being present for them.

My second night volunteering I met a mother with a baby who had been born at just under three pounds. She was in shock and in tears. Her baby had already been in the NICU two weeks and had one surgery, with another two surgeries to follow.  My volunteer trainer had been unable to make it that night, so I stumbled and bumbled around but I was in way over my head. So by default I was forced to shut up because, well, I was speechless.  All I could think to ask her was what her baby’s name was.

She blinked and smiled for a second,  “I named him Elijah.”

“That’s a really unique name,” I replied.

“Yeah. I thought it would be a good name for him.”

“Why’s that?’

“Well…” and she paused to look up at me, “Because in the bible Elijah never dies.”

It was as if she had punched me in the chest.  And so the lesson was learned. Here in the midst of all her suffering this woman had been an example to me of what true faith was. It was about being there and believing for someone else, in this case her baby, and sharing that faith with a stranger.  She believed so much that she had even given her faith a name and wrapped it, like a blanket of love, around her child.