Once upon a time, I lost track of a few days of September and accidentally conceived a child. The moment my calendar set me straight, I knew I was getting a baby out of this deal. I also knew that I had no idea what I was going to potentially name a third daughter. So that very afternoon, while my older children played outside, I sat down with a name book and made a list of names that I didn’t completely hate.
I delighted over the promise of new life and the “of course-ness” of the timing. My Month Five miracle (I have a pattern—all of my babies were conceived in five month intervals). The Spring baby I wanted. The June baby that would complete Mimi’s birthday calendar. But of course I was pregnant! We were checking all of the boxes. But then…
My potential third daughter became my devastatingly real third loss. My list of names was set aside and my baby was dubbed “Peaches” by my three year old daughter and buried under our peach tree “because they match.”
I agonized over the thought of getting pregnant again. The perfect timing had slipped through my grasp and I didn’t know when my next child would fit into the picture. Month Five would be a Christmas baby. Plan A seemed too far away. But now was most certainly too soon.
Then my cousin told me her most recent birth story and said something about how God must have wanted her to abandon her illusion of control. That stuck with me. Haunted me for days. So the next time my husband pulled me close I told him I was tired of trying to control the timing. That I would rather have a baby “too soon” than wait for a moment I “needed” a baby and find myself unable to conceive one. He said that was fine by him and I guess that’s a good thing because two weeks later, that test bloomed positive. A new life was blossoming within me.
The excitement lasted for about a week and then I crashed hard. I wasn’t lying when I said “now” was too soon.
Historically, Month Three has been my hardest month of grieving. It’s when the numbness wears off and I start to doom-spiral about how broken I am and how I’ll never have another baby no matter how badly I want one. For a moment, I believed it would help that I was pregnant already. After all, one cannot reasonably say she will never make another baby if one is already growing within her womb. Only… the making of a baby has never been hard for me. It’s the keeping of them that seems elusive.
I was only five weeks pregnant, rapidly approaching Week Six (aka the week where babies go to die). How was I supposed to face the hardest month of grief alongside the most anxiety-inducing week of pregnancy? Whose idea was this???
I hit rock bottom that day. I told God I didn’t even know how to hope I would be able to hold this baby in September. I didn’t have it in me. And I wanted to pray like I prayed when I started bleeding with Justice. I wanted to push back against the heavens and say, “You promised!” But that was my dilemma. He hadn’t promised. I was fumbling in the darkness of that cold January morning the way I had stumbled through that dreadful day in October, weeping at the heavens the only prayer I had within me: “Please, God, please.”
Oh how I wished I had something more to stand on than “Please, God, please.”
I wiped my tears and opened my Bible to where I had been reading in the book of Zechariah:
“‘But now I will not treat the remnant of this people as in the former days,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘For the seed shall be prosperous…’”
I jolted out of my reading. I felt that I had encountered a direct answer to my pity party of a prayer. Like God had penned these words for the Israelites, but also, in His timeless wisdom, tailored them specifically for me.
“I will not treat you as in the former days. For the seed—this little life within you—shall be prosperous.”
That would have been enough to calm my anxious heart. That, in itself, was a solid enough promise to stake my hopes on. I could see myself during every anxiety-riddled bathroom trip, whispering to my belly: “For the seed shall be prosperous. Prosper, baby, prosper.”
But God is so extravagant that He didn’t stop there. The verse continues:
“The vine shall give its fruit,
The ground shall give her increase,
And the heavens shall give their dew—”
That probably sounds like nothing more than a pretty line of poetry to you, but I can assure you that it hits a lot different if you sat down with a name book a few months prior and selected the name Talia as a top contender.
Talia—a Hebrew name meaning “dew from heaven.”
So when I read that bit of poetry, I started crying all over again. I choked in absolute wonder over this extremely specific and personal promise God had woven into this ancient prophecy with me in mind.
It was as if God had taken my face in His hands and said, “Rebekah, relax. I have called this child by name.”
“That’s my girl,” I whispered in awe.
And it was. It is. She’s here. She is alive in this world and thriving, exactly as promised.
Talia. Dew from Heaven.
A living, breathing reminder that God’s word is timeless and true.
