The Beginning

     I was not suppose to have been born. I know that I was always - before the foundations of the earth - planned to be born by God.  By my parents I was not planned. I was the ‘surprise’ child. I did not know the following story until a few years ago.
     My father was taken the emergency room in pain.  The doctors informed he and my mother that surgery was needed and it would leave him infertile.  
     “Do you want a few weeks to try for another child?”  
     My parents looked at one another. In agreement that they were totally happy with their two daughters, my older sisters 7 and 4, they told the doctor, “No, we are happy with our family. Go ahead and do the surgery.”
     Two weeks later as my dad lay in bed still recovering from surgery my mom told him, “I’m pregnant.”  I was born 8 months later. They had not planned me, but God had.  
     Since they already had two girls, my dad desperately wanted a boy.  Therefore, the only name they had picked out was a boy’s name.  One story about my father that has been passed down since I can remember is the first moment he held me.
     “I couldn’t love you more if you were ten boys.”  
     This is a priceless memory to me since 5 years later I was to loose my father to a car accident. 
     It took them three days to name me, one of the many running jokes in our family about ’the baby’ of the clan.  Before leaving the hospital I was given the name, Kathy Ann.  God has been using the meaning of my name in the recent past to provide healing to my spirit - confirming to my soul that I am his daughter. My parents did not plan my name based on the meaning, but God did.

    Kathy, pure one.
    Ann, full of grace.
    
     He says to me, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I said, "Ah, Lord GOD! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth.”  But the LORD said to me, "Do not say, 'I am only a youth’; for to all to whom I send you, you shall go, and whatever I command you, you shall speak. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 1:4-8 ESV
     So I press forward, living the missionary life I have been called to with my husband and children. In our weakness, with His strength, doing all we can to proclaim the purity and grace that our Father provides to His children. And all the while standing silent hearing my Heavenly Father whisper to my soul,
     “My daughter whom I formed and knitted together with My own hands, you are pure and full of My grace!"