Naming

When you don't get to name your children, you have no choice but find a way to love with their names. You see it as a gift from their birth parents, a way for them to leave an unerasable mark on their – now your – children. I value them immensely, but there's certainly something that comes from wrestling with what your child's name ought to be. Calling out an attribute in faith, falling in love with who you've already imagined them to be, but also with who you are praying them to become. That is why when I discovered my son's name in the Bible, my heart leapt with joy, even though I hadn't chosen it for him.

After Judas betrays Jesus, the 11 remaining apostles realize they need to call another. They choose between Barsabbas, which means ‘son of the Sabbath,’ and Matthias which means ‘gift from God.” Our Matías is simply the Spanish translation of this name. 

To me, this means that God may be calling out my son for a purpose far beyond what we can see right now. It challenges me to see beyond the tantrums, the messy underwear, or the stained clothes that come from having no table manners. It fills my heart with hope knowing that he could grow into a man who is called out to do God's work. Though he has cognitive disabilities, difficulty regulating his emotions, and struggles to connect with siblings and friends in a way that makes them want to spend time with him, his current reality does not define the future scope of what God could do through him.

In the same way the lot fell to Matthias, our very own Matías may one day be called out of the pain of his past and into a glorious, purposeful future that only he can fulfill.