As a child my dad always sang this song to me...
It went "Hey Dawn Dawn, What you gonna call that pretty little baby? I think I'll call him Immanuel." I never knew where it came from. In fact I thought he made it up. Anyways it's pops in and out of my head every once in a while. Turns out is is really a song about Mary that my dad just plugged my name into.
I was raised Baptist and our church always sang traditional hymns. There is one that I have always loved that goes "Immanuel... God is with us" It has also always popped in my head. I never realized that Immanuel is a combination of 2 Hebrew words. Immanu which means is with us, and El which means God. But once I knew that I always had a place in my heart for the word. I am a hugggeeee music lover so a song popping in and out of my head is rather normal.
So now that I am pregnant with our first son, this word, Immanuel, has been EVERYWHERE. I cannot escape it.
It started when I had a dream that we named him Immanuel. This was odd to me because from very early on we have had our baby's name picked out. Lennox Bentley Benke. I kind of blew it off. But it has reoccurred. Reoccurring nonsense dreams are very common when I am pregnant and don't cause any alarm.
As we are entering the Christmas season, the name Immanuel is being said almost every church service. Again, this is nothing new. I mean after all Christmas is about the birth of Jesus... who is... Immanuel. So again alone this would mean nothing more than that we are entering the Christmas season.
This led em to do a little research. Was Jesus named Jesus or Immanuel? So after I did a little searching I sorted it all out. The angel told Mary to name the baby Immanuel. She named him Jesus after the angel came to Joseph and told him they would name the baby Jesus. Immanuel meaning God is with us because he would be here in the flesh. Jesus because he was the savior. And at that time.. names meant who the person was.
With all of these occurrences, I have been contemplating if I am supposed to name Lennox Immanuel. I wouldn't make it his first name, but maybe his middle name. I completely adore the name Bentley and love it next to Lennox. I love to say Lennox Bentley. So I was thinking I should add the Immanuel to the end. Lennox Bentley Immanuel! Not too shabby until you add the last name. 4 names??
So yesterday I told my best friend all about it. We text back and forth about the pros and cons of the name Immanuel. Our conversation ended with me saying I was going to wait until after Christmas to decide since I would not hear the name as much after the season was over.
Then I talked to Jacob and he said that he didn't mind if we replaced the Bentley with Immanuel. But like I said before... I LOVE Bentley. So we just said oh well, we will wait.
So this morning... We went to church at 8:15 a.m. We talked about the name a little bit but it was constantly in my thoughts. Again, we said let's just wait and see.
We go in and open up the bulletin. Guess what the theme of the service was?? Obeying God even when it doesn't amke sense to you! That's right. 4 names DONT make sense to me. So was excited to hear which bible story they used to explain this topic. Any guesses? The story of Joseph. How he was to wed Mary but she was pregnant when they went to get married. So he had to trust God. And an angel came to him and said that they would have a baby! (Jesus/Immanuel) And the pastor hit on several points about trusting God and being obedient to what is best.
As he was talking I was doodling the name.. Lennox Bentley Immanuel Benke. I just kept writing it. Then I wondered what his initials would be. L.B.I.B. Suddenly I realized... That is the word BIBLE spelled backwards minus one vowel. {On a side note, Lily's initials are LMB which basically spells lamb minus one vowel.} I felt completely positive at that moment that Lennox should have 4 names. Nothing is set in stone at the moment but I just needed to write all this out. Since it is constantly running through my head.
COMMENTS PLEASE!!
