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Jax Reilly Crampton | About Your Name

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Dear Jax,

About your name.

A couple years before you were conceived, I was wishing desperately for a baby.  In an attempt to soothe my baby ache, I spent time looking up baby names.  I used a website that allowed me to search names by culture / ethnic background.  I focused on Hebrew names, since I knew they would have meanings that involve God and His character.  The meanings I searched for had to do with God's faithfulness, goodness, and promises.  I knew that when your Daddy and I finally bore a child together, it would be a culmination and proclamation of God's 
extravagant faithfulness, 
never ending goodness, and 
rock-solid promises.

From these meanings, I culled girl and boy names I liked, and put them in a spreadsheet.  In the years that followed, your Daddy and I looked through that spreadsheet many times.  We added names, crossed out names, and starred names we liked.  The conversation never stayed on target for too long until it digressed to your Daddy inventing the craziest names he could think of, and suggesting I add them to the list.  I used to get so frustrated with him, even though he was making me laugh at the same time.  Such a serious conversation for him to take so lightly!  But that is one of the things he does best - keep me from being too serious and making me laugh.

One evening after we conceived you, we were on a date eating dinner at Pei Wei.  Your Daddy downloaded an iPhone app that had baby names in it, and we scrolled through them.  









"Endurance and persistence will be rewarded"


The name "Jax" jumped out at us both.  It jumped out at me so much it almost felt tangible.  I thought, "I could really see naming my child Jax. It just fits."  Your Daddy agreed that he really liked it as well.  We added it to our spreadsheet, along with several other names from the app, and continued our evening together.

In October last year, when I was four months pregnant, your Daddy and I went on our annual anniversary camping trip.



This vacation is something I look forward to every year.  I love spending time with your Daddy, because he is so fun to be around.  I love the great outdoors that God created, in all its beauty and peace.  And I love being "unplugged," leaving behind ll the technology that we normally thrive and drown in.



Each morning on that vacation, we spent an hour discussing various goal planning items for the coming year.  One of those mornings, we pulled out our name spreadsheet.  And somehow, miraculously, despite all our differing opinions (and your Daddy's tendency to interject with name suggestions like "Trudayeaux" or "Bonjanajoy"), things fell into place, and we selected a complete girl name, and a complete boy name for the baby in my womb.

We "sat" on those names for the next few months, saying them out loud, writing them down, praying over them, in an effort to see if they still felt right.  If they still felt like your name.  Oddly enough, even though I love the girl name we selected, after I checked the government's name website, I found it was a bit more popular than I would prefer.  This made me hesitant about the girl name, and we wavered back and forth over it.  But the boy name was rock-solid the minute we chose it, and I've never doubted its perfection.  That should have made me realize I was carrying a boy!  Instead, for several reasons, over the next few months, your Daddy and I became nearly convinced you were a girl.

Since we wanted your gender to be a surprise, people would frequently ask me what I "wanted."  What I wanted was a healthy, beautiful baby!  But deep, deep down, I tried mightily to silence the thought, I wanted a firstborn son.

In a prayer ministry our church offers, one of the foundational questions we ask a person is if they were a "wanted" pregnancy and if they were the "right" gender.  Every time I helped a person through this healing prayer model, I would be struck by these questions.  It reminded me to be open about my future children, never expecting them to be a certain gender, always knowing they were wanted.

For me, it was easier to do this by not finding out your gender!  The anticipation, surprise, and the ever-present UNKNOWN kept me guessing, and second guessing, myself.

Throughout the pregnancy, about 90% of people who decided to guess your gender, guessed "girl."  Only a handful guessed "boy", including your Aunt Tabitha, your Tita (my grandmother), and your Aunt Mercy, who dreamed you were a boy.  Your Daddy dreamed twice that we had a little girl, and your Aunt Priscilla dreamed we had a girl.  I guess that means one day you will get a sister!

When I was eight years old, several prophets affiliated with our international association of Vineyard Churches, left their home base of Anaheim, California, to do prophetic seminars throughout the United States.  My mom says that for months, I would pray every night that when the prophets came to our city, they would prophecy over me.

When they arrived in our city, I attended several seminar sessions with my parents and several hundred other people.  At the end of the session, or sometimes during the entire session, the prophets would stand on the stage, picking people out of the audience, and prophesying over them.  Many, many people were radically touched as they were called out.  But each session, I went home without a prophecy.  When all the sessions were over, I remember crying, so disappointed that after all my prayers, I was never chosen.

At one of the last evening prayer sessions, my parents went up for prayer after the service, and one of the prophets, Larry Randolph, came to pray for them.  He asked my mom if her name was Elizabeth.  She said no, but her daughter's name was Elizabeth (my middle name).  He said he didn't know if it was in the natural or the spiritual, but he saw someone in the family who was like the Biblical Elizabeth, and coming forth, one who would be like John the Baptist, preparing the way for the Lord.

I don't remember if my parents told me this story immediately or not.  However, that Sunday morning, we arrived at church to find Larry Randolph was speaking during our church service.  Here, at our tiny little church of less than one hundred people, he had chosen to come.  I was sitting on the front row with my parents, in a white dress that was my favorite.  And then, he called me up.

He asked my name and age, I said, "Joy" and "I'm eight, I'll be nine in February."  He laughed.  And my dad interjected, "This is our daughter Joy Elizabeth.  This is the Elizabeth you spoke of."

The prophet nodded, and proceeded to speak over me amazing things.  Thankfully, the service was recorded to audio cassette, and my dad transcribed the prophet's words.

I have read, and re-read them over and over during my life.  So many things he prophesied over me have come to pass... that I would play the piano, that I would be a worship leader, that I would excel in school and academics... that I would "mother the mothers"... that an anointing has been on me since my conception... and there are many more things I have yet to see come to fruition in my life.

I can't read through the prophecy without crying.  Some day when you're old enough, I will share it with you.  One of the things the prophet did is impart to me his spiritual prophetic gifting, praying that I too would become a prophet.  I believe the last nine months in which I have prayed over you, and written to you, has been part of that prophetic gift.  Calling into being the destiny that is on your life, an anointing that has been on you since your conception.

After these events, my parents began praying and fasting to see if God would have this "John" the prophet spoke of, come from them in the natural or not.  My parents used natural family planning their entire marriage to achieve and avoid pregnancy, and one odd thing they didn't know, is that when a woman fasts from food, it can throw her basal body temperature and her ovulation cycle off balance.  Since natural family planning depends on accurate daily basal temperatures, using them to track ovulation, my mom, ironically, conceived.

Because of this, our entire family was convinced my mom was carrying a boy.  My parents named the baby "John Valiant", and we called the baby "John" during the pregnancy.  Myself and all my siblings have in our names a Biblical character, and a fruit of the spirit.  This baby would be no different.

I had the privilege of being at the birth of this baby, my parents fourth child.  I was ten years old, and so excited to see this baby come into the world.  The baby was born at home, and unfortunately, the midwife was not the greatest in the world, and she did not arrive in time.  My dad, a friend from church, and myself, were the ones present when the baby was born.  My mom was on her hands and knees for delivery, and my dad caught the slippery baby as it arrived in the world.  I clearly remember hearing the choke of tears in his voice, of relief and happiness, as he croaked, "It's a girl!"

It was too much for me.  I began sobbing instantly, running into my parents room and throwing myself in the center of their bed, bawling.  I already had two sisters, and I wanted a brother SO badly.  I was so upset that my expectations had not come to pass.  I heard my dad yelling across the house, "Joy Elizabeth, get in here RIGHT NOW, I need your help!!!!"  My dad was not a yeller, so he got my attention.  I ran back to the birthing room, my eyes puffy, wet tears soaking the top of my blouse.

Instead of John Valiant, we now had Priscilla Grace.

Today, your Aunt Priscilla is amazing woman, and one of my most treasured friends (as all my sisters are).  She and I have much in common, and we relate deeply to each other, and to God.  It didn't take long after she was born for me to fall in love with her, and get over the fact that she wasn't a boy after all.  I can't imagine trading her for anyone else.  I am deeply grateful for who she is as my sister, and who she is in the Kingdom of God.

This experience stuck with me though, and played a significant part in me not wanting to find out the gender of my children, wanting to keep my heart and mind open for them to be either boy or girl, without any expectation one way or the other.  (I still don't do well when my expectations end up far from reality).

I also never wanted a child to arrive in our family the "wrong" gender.  I wanted them to be accepted from the moment of conception, to the moment we discovered who they were, and for the rest of their lives.  I never wanted it to hang over them spiritually or otherwise, that they weren't truly wanted, or they were somehow "wrong."

Despite my best efforts to be open, keeping my expectations as close to "zero" as possible, things just kept occurring to make us think you were a girl.  By the end of the pregnancy, as open-minded as I was, I was convinced, truly expecting a girl to arrive in my arms.  I still didn't have a desire one way or the other, so I thought, I just had this expectation you were a girl, based on all the things that had happened.

So at 8:28 a.m. on March 10th,when Robin handed you to me, bloody and slippery and HUGE, I grabbed you under your arms to pull you to my chest, and I saw your tiny male body parts.  In shock, I blurted, "It's a boy!!!"

And then my heart swelled, and I cried, and I realized, "I WANTED a boy.  I really WANTED a firstborn son.  All this time I was convinced it was a girl and all I really wanted was a SON."  I could never have spoken it, and tried to keep myself from believing it, but in my heart of hearts, it was true.  YOU are what I wanted.  The Lord knew.  Only He knew.


And how amazing it is that the women in Scripture who were barren, who waited years and years to have a baby, when the baby finally arrived, it was a firstborn son: Sarah (Abraham's wife), Hannah (Samuel's mother), and Elizabeth (John the Baptist's mother and cousin to Jesus Christ).

Because the Lord is amazing, I expect the prophecy spoken to my parents before your Aunt Priscilla was conceived, to be multi-faceted.  She is part of the promise, part of the prophecy.  She has her part to play.  

And you.  You too are part of the promise.  You have a prophecy spoken twenty two years before you were conceived.  It is your anointing, the call on your life.

So when we selected your name, we named you John Valiant.

Jax is a form of John, which means “God is gracious.”

Reilly means “Valiant.”

The following is what I wrote, what I prophesied over you before you were born.  A few hours after your birth, my dad read this out loud in the presence of our family, in the presence of God.

Jax’s name speaks of the goodness and power of God.  We expect God to use Jax to show the goodness and power of God on the earth.

Reilly’s name speaks of one who is boldly courageous and steadfast.  We expect God to use Reilly to demonstrate the strength and salvation that comes from God in ways and places that require boldness and courage.

Jax is the phonetic version of the French name Jacques (Jacques translated to English is John).  Interestingly enough, Jax may also be considered a form of Jackson,which means supplanter.  A supplanter is one who takes over the possessions or place or another, often by trickery.  Because our Jax is one who is valiant for the cause of Christ, he will instead courageously take ground from our enemy Satan,through the authority of God, taking back people who truly belong to God.

This Scripture selection is for Jax, called to beone like John the Baptist.

Luke1:76-79
“And you, my little son,  will be called the prophet of the Most High,
      because you will prepare the way for the Lord.
You will tell his people how to find salvation through forgiveness of their sins.
Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
      and to guide us to the path of peace.”

This Scripture selection is for Reilly, called to be brave and faithful.

2Corinthians 4:7-10, 16-18
"We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that OUR GREAT POWER IS FROM GOD, not from ourselves.

"We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed. Through suffering,our bodies continue to share in the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be seen in our bodies…

"THAT IS WHY WE NEVER GIVE UP. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see WILL LAST FOREVER."

Be courageous and valiant, my son.  Be a prophet, preparing the way for Jesus on the earth.  This is who you were created to be, and it will always be your destiny.

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