jackiechan.jpgWe had been bouncing names around for several days, wanting to see if it sounded right, fit the child, and has some meaning other than: I want my child to get a job some day. At the same time, you know, you don’t want your little one made fun of. It doesn’t seem to make any difference, tho. These days no matter what you name your child SOMEONE will make a smelly comment about it: “Ha ha, what a hippie name!”, or “Why would you name her that?”.

Ang and I have never been into playing it safe or going with the flow. In fact, I’ve been known to break the flow: “Dude, we’re trying to get High here, why are you talking all this Jesus stuff?” Honestly, I can’t help it. And Angie married me and, well, she caught the bug.

Sorry, big lead up to something as seemingly “everyday” as naming your child. Hey, children get names every single day. It must not take too long to come up with a name, besides, YOU HAVE NINE MONTHS TO DO IT! Being Mr. Break The Flow Man, I want to wait until I see my new gift before deciding on a name. I dunno… nothing deep, I just wanna see.

We bounced around the name Grace. The grace of God is something so wonderful. It is about the Creator of the Universe wanting to be involved in our lives. Read the first chapter of Proverbs where Wisdom says things like, “I am shouting in the streets, come and I’ll show you how to live well: riches, honor, and long life!”

And the name Grace sounds cool when you play around with it for awhile: sounds like a comic book hero or a great athlete.

In the end, we decided to be more… well… clever. Stephen means “The Lord’s crown of victory!”… sweet. So we named our second son the Spanish name for Stephen: Esteban.

Chanya Naomi is our newest baby’s name. Chanya is a Hebrew word that means, “Grace of the Lord.” Naomi means something nice like, “Pleasant”. Plus it’s not another name ending with an ‘A’.

Chanya, by the way, sounds like Jackie Chan (ya).