There are many nicknames in our family. Ki-ki, T-dog, Sweet Baby James, Munch, Ghostrider, Hal-Gal, Boo, Fefer, just to name a few. The other day, Boo informed us that she wanted her name to be Sam. Blake thought that was pretty funny because when I was pregnant with her and we were thinking of baby names, Samantha or Sam was one name Blake wanted for her. Anyway, everyday she would remind us to call her Sam; and so we obliged! I called Sam to breakfast in the morning, kissed Sam goodbye and sent her to school, I even sent her to play-group with Sam on her lunch sack. A couple of days ago, Sam came home from school with a paper she had written in class. She had proudly written Sam on the line for her name. Even the “S” was backwards! Next to Sam, her teacher had written in red ink... “Faith”. I showed her the paper and asked her if her teacher had said anything to her. She proudly said, “Yeah, my teacher held up the paper and said, ‘Who wrote Sam?’ so I raised my hand and told her that I did! It’s my new name!” “Well,” her teacher told her, “you need to write your real name.”
As I thought about this exchange with her teacher, I was reminded of what her real name means to me. Faith. When I was trying to think of girl names, this was the name that came to my mind and wouldn’t leave. I knew that this was to be her name. I resisted the thought at first because I was worried about the religious connotation behind the name. Would she be teased? In the end, I relented and wrote Faith on her birth certificate. After time, I grew to love her name. It fit her personality, and it fit what our family stands for in this ever changing world. As we have gone through the trials that have been given us this past year, I have thought about faith a lot. As I struggle with the notion of “Why do we have to go through this? Why does Halli have to struggle so much? Why does Heavenly Father not heal her?” I always come back to faith. I do know that He loves us. I do know that he knows things I can’t even begin to comprehend. I have to have faith. When I pray for Halli to be healed, I have to have enough faith to change my prayer to “Please bless us with strength to handle this.” I have to have faith that as we are in the refiners fire, he knows just when we will be made pure. It is times like this, that we are put to the test, and I feel myself, and our family draw nearer to Him as we strive to endure, and endure well.
In the meantime, we will continue to have faith. We will continue to endure, and I will remember that when Heavenly Father gently writes “Faith” in red ink in our lives, he is just reminding us who we really are. Despite what her teacher says, I will continue to call Sam to dinner. Until she decides to be Faith again, or maybe Boo, or maybe even Aretha.... you never know.
