Why Choose Hope?

A few years back I was asked by my teacher why my parents named me Hope. I was slightly ashamed of the fact that I didn't know the answer to her question. So that evening I went to my mom and asked her. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that my name had so much meaning to her and that her and my dad hadn't just chose the name because they liked it. The other day I decided to ask my mom again. I'm older then I was back then and figured that I might be able to comprehend her explanation a bit more now. Sure enough, after hearing her reasoning, it meant a lot more to me then it did back then. I never fully appreciated how amazing it truly was.

She had told me that when she was thinking about having another child (I have an older brother who was born a year and a half before me) she was terrified to bring one into this world. Not because she couldn't take care of the first one or didn't feel she could love another, but purely for the reason of believing that the world wasn't a great place for someone to be born into.

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After a little while of thinking this way God made it very to clear to her that if she wasn't having a child for the sake of fear, than she wasn't putting her hope in God and trusting in his abilities of taking care of one. It was pointed out to her that she was basically saying that Satan was stronger than God and she was allowing him to control her choices instead of having faith in God's ability to care for her child. She described this as the moment in her life where God had most revealed himself to her. She had never been more sure that it was God she was hearing and no one else. She knew that this was coming from him, and him alone.

As my mom was flipping through her Bible one day she came across Romans 5:1-5 (specifically verses 2 and 5). She had read these verses before, but was beginning to see it in a whole new light. Verse 5 says "And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us." This made her realize that if we put our hope in the Lord, he will not disappoint us. More specifically that if she put her hope in the Lord to take care of her child, he would not disappoint her.

A couple months later, my parents found out that they were pregnant with another child. As her pregnancy went on she had the usually simple stresses that come along with it, but she said she felt calm and confident in the fact that God had a plan, and he knew what he was doing. As the due date got closer my parents made the decision that if they were to have a girl, they would name her Hope. This would be a symbol of their obedience to the Lord as they proclaimed that all their hope was in him and not in the ways of this world. This would be a daily reminder to them of where their hope lyes. And it is.