What's in a Name?

Saturday night when Justin and I were on our way to Paducah, I got a text message from a dear friend. The message read, "Did you know that Jaxon's name means 'God has been gracious'? How true is that!" I had never really thought about the meaning of Jaxon's name. I had never really thought about the meaning of any name. But it made me curious. What's in a name?

Like my name. Kendra. I never knew the meaning of my name. So I looked it up and found that my name means, "water baby, magical." Remember those water baby dolls that we played with as little girls? You filled them with water and they moved and wiggled like real babies. Only real babies don't smell like plastic, and when your little sister bites real babies, they don't leak water everywhere and forever deflate to never be played with again. Yea, that's what I first thought of. That, and the fact that I am apparently magical.

And Justin. I looked his name up too. His name means "just, upright, righteous, true." His name has a little better meaning than mine. But he's not magical.

Jaxon means "God has been gracious." Jackson means, "Son of Jack." For some reason, this made my heart smile. My son's name is spelled differently, because of the simple fact that I wanted it to be spelled differently and if his name were to be shortened, I wanted him to be called 'Jax' instead of 'Jack'. But my son is not just "the son of Jack." (Actually he isn't the son of Jack at all. He's the son of Justin. But anywho). My son is Jaxon, and God has been gracious.

Jaxon wasn't in our plans when we found out that we were pregnant. We wanted children someday. But we didn't think we were ready on July 17, 2007- when I took the test that told me that I was a Mommy and that I was carrying one of God's most special blessings inside of me. But he was in God's plan. You know, because God is gracious.

God has never shown us how truly gracious he is any more clearly than He does day by day through our son. We can't imagine our life without him, and we have no idea what we did or what we talked about or what we laughed at before he came into our world. It's unbelievable how much personality that God wrapped up in this almost two year old boy and it's even more unbelievable how much love we hold in our hearts for him. He is our gift from our most gracious God and apart from God sending His own son to die for our sins, he is the best gift that we have ever received.

Jaxon is our son- and God has been gracious.