With my third pregnancy, I felt like I heard so much from the Lord about my baby. I can’t wait to share that story here with you!
My husband and I welcomed Elleigh Dawn Hutton into the world on August 3rd, 2019 at 2:26am. It was not a delivery like I’ve had with my other two. This labor never really got intense until it was time to push and even then it was nothing like I experienced with the others. I even had a pain free contraction as I was pushing!
What I’d really like to share with you, however, is Elleigh’s story up until the time of her birth and what God taught me along the way.
Cole, our middle son, approached my husband and I more than a year ago and asked us, out of the blue, “When are you going to have a baby girl?”
Shocked, I looked at him and said, “What would you name her?”
Without skipping a beat or even taking another breath to think about it, he blurted out, “Elleigh!”
Now if we would have recently been watching a movie that had a character named Ellie in it or had a friend named Ellie, I wouldn’t have thought much more about what he said. But it stirred something inside me the way he answered with a name so quickly.
I decided to look up the meaning of the name Ellie. It means “God is my light”. Wow, I was blown away. It took a few months for God to begin stirring our hearts to have another baby. But He did. We thought we were going to be done for sure after having three children only two and half years apart! We felt like we were barely treading water for about 4 years! If you’ve read my book Finding Freedom then you know our struggles and the twists and turns of tragedy and adoption.
What is really interesting to me now, looking back, the Lord began teaching me about children and their role in the family long before we ever thought about having another baby.
“Children are God’s love-gift; they are heaven’s generous reward. Children born to a young couple will one day rise to protect and provide for their parents. Happy will be the couple who has many of them! A household full of children will not bring shame on your name but victory when you face your enemies, for your offspring will have influence and honor to prevail on your behalf!” Psalm 127:3-5, TPT
Not only are children a blessing (they bring fruition and multiplication) they are our heritage. They rise up and call us blessed. They become a weapon against the enemy.
And this is what really got me.
They launch us into our destiny!
Two scriptures stick out to me when I’m talking about children launching us into our destiny.
“Once again Leah became pregnant and gave birth to another son. She named him Judah, for she said, “Now I will praise the Lord!” And then she stopped having children.” Genesis 29:35
“But women will be saved through childbearing, assuming they continue to live in faith, love, holiness, and modesty.” 1 Timothy 2:15
Leah wasn’t saying that now she has received salvation because she had Judah, but rather that she has found a fulfillment. She was so joyful and content after years of not being able to have children. In 1 Timothy, “saved” is the Greek word “sozo” which means to be made whole. It is the same Greek word used for the woman with the issue of blood. Jesus says to her that her faith has made her “whole”. She was healed both spiritually and physically. Compare that to women having children! They are made whole through bearing and raising children.
With that change of heart, the Lord was able to steer my husband and I into wanting another child. We really wanted a little girl since we have three boys already! It’s been fun being a boy mom but suddenly pink, lace, and ruffles filled my thoughts!
After about three months of trying to conceive, it hit me, I haven’t prayed for the girl I want.
I remember it suddenly like the Holy Spirit was saying, “You haven’t asked me yet.”
So I prayed for little Elleigh to be a girl and wouldn’t you know the next month we were expecting!
After finding this out, I had another revelation. I could ask the Lord to reveal to me what we were having. Is it a boy or is it a girl? Here’s where I want to make my point.
HOLD HIM ACCOUNTABLE FOR HIS WORD.
I said to Him, “Lord, you told all these women throughout the Bible what they were going to have. You told Sarah, Mary, Elizabeth, and many more they were going to have a son. You are also not a respecter of persons. What you’ve done for one you will do for another. What am I going to have, a boy or a girl?”
He was so faithful! With modern technology, we can find out what we are having at close to 10 weeks. But I found out even sooner! Within a week or two of taking a pregnancy test, I was hanging up Christmas decorations. I was looking at a burlap stocking with red ruffles embroidering the top. The Holy Spirit could not have made it more clear! I saw the red ruffles and could see my little girl running around with ruffled pants. My husband was sitting in his recliner when I gasped and said, “It’s a girl!” I know he thought I was crazy! How could God speak through a Christmas stocking?! He will use anything 🙂
I also had a dream I could not shake. I had the dream before I knew I was pregnant. I got the interpretation after the stocking revelation. In the dream, someone handed me a baby underneath a bathroom stall. When I got the baby, it suddenly turned into a hamburger bun. WHAT? The weirder the dream, the more you need to pay attention to it! So, a few weeks went by and I was driving in my car.
My mom works in radiology and performs ultrasounds. She has always said, we are looking for the “turtle head” for a boy or the “hamburger bun” for a girl. I knew right then, the hamburger bun represented my little girl safely growing inside my womb! It was such a blessing and God was so faithful to not reveal it just once, but twice that we were going to be blessed with a baby girl! And what a blessing she is. She is everything I imagined and more.
After she was born I asked the Lord to show me some things. There were a few prayer requests I didn’t receive that I prayed for and with the emotions of becoming a mom again I just needed some encouragement from Him. He gave me John 15:11.
“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
Having a baby brings about a completeness.
Hearing the Lord’s voice and then seeing it come to pass brings about a wholeness. Joy that becomes our strength. And just like Leah, my praises ring higher and higher because the Lord has blessed us! Perhaps the greatest blessing isn’t Elleigh herself but the acceptance that my children aren’t hindering me in any way! They are putting me on the path into a greater Promised Land!
