P&S #6

And he shall be called....

Samuel David Lucido - "Sammy"

When we started talking about baby names it mostly a question of which girl name we were going to choose, I mentioned a couple boy names, Samuel David being one of them, but everyone thought we would be having a girl so we didn't think too much about boy names. We unofficially decided Samuel David was the boy name we wanted to go with.

"Sam" is an important name in both of our families. Dave's dad is called Sam (his given name is Salvatore) and my Dad's dad was nicknamed Sam growing up and his amazing life has inspired countless Sam's to be found in our extended family. We hope that our baby boy will have the qualities of both of these two great men. His middle name was my choice - I would also like Sammy to have the wonderful qualities of his daddy.

A couple weeks ago a wonderful friend from Detroit sent a forwarded devotional about Hannah and her journey toward motherhood. The article is best summarized in the final paragraph.

That which we strive to hold can be kept only by surrendering it to God. This biblical principle applies to our hopes as well as to our very life (Luke 9:24). Learn from Hannah's example of faith, and pour out your heart to God. Lay your hopes before Him—the only One who can fulfill your desires or change them to match His will.

(the rest of devotional is found here: https://mail.google.com/mail/?shva=1#inbox/128f3b35e9f4e6ec )

I prayed for this baby for months before he began growing in my womb and I'm sure at some point in my prayers I prayed something crazy like "I know whatever baby you give us will always be yours first Lord, and ours second." I'm confident I "surrendered" Sammy to God never imagining this path for us, not knowing the depth of what that could mean...at times I tell God "this is not what I meant by surrendering my baby to you!!" But when is surrender ever something we expect it be? The devotional got me thinking about all this and also made me google "Hannah's baby" because I had an idea that it could have been...and yes it was...the baby she prayed for and surrendered to the Lord was the prophet Samuel. Huh.

A couple days later I woke up at 5:30am wondering what the name Samuel David means anyway...we chose it for our baby boy based on familial importance and because we liked the name, but every name has a meaning. Turns out Samuel means "God heard" and David means "beloved". *tears* Couldn't be a more fitting name.