God’s Promise of Grace

“God said to Noah, ‘This is the sign of the promise that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.’”  – Genesis 9:17

I was thinking today how my children’s names tell the story of Nick and my life together.

First there was Luke, which means “light” or “truth” and indeed, Luke lit up our world.  He brightened it with a love and a joy that we never could have imagined possible.

Then there was Faith.  It was only in retrospect that I appreciated that God gave us Faith on the cusp of the greatest test of our faith we have ever experienced (see Blessing #22 for more of that story).

And now, there’s Grace.

Nick and I always put thought into what our babies’ names mean, but when we selected “Elizabeth” to be her middle name, the reason was much more practical.  We committed early on that all our children would be given Bible names, and quite honestly, there just weren’t that many Bible names we liked that really flowed when paired with Grace as a first name, so Elizabeth it was.

It wasn’t until just a couple of weeks ago that it dawned on me that I didn’t even know what Elizabeth meant.  It means…

God’s Promise

Grace Elizabeth.  God’s promise of Grace.

When I think about God’s promises and God’s grace, I’m reminded of the story of Noah.  Noah and his family face a great storm – greater than any storm that they have ever known.  It tests their faith, but when the storm is over…

God gives them a rainbow as a symbol of His promise of grace that he would never again send so great a storm upon them, but in order to receive the rainbow, they had to endure the storm.

God doesn’t always wait until the storm is over to send a rainbow, though.

As they say, “sometimes God calms the storm, and sometimes God calms His child.”  Sometimes rainbows show up while it’s still raining.  That’s how I like to think of her – as God’s promise of grace to us – a reminder that one day it will stop raining, and the storms of this life will cease forever.  Because of His Grace.  Through Faith.  In His Truth.

*Stay tuned for an upcoming post about Grace’s birth story.  Jesus’ fingerprints were all over this one!