A+B = C

I am often extremely indecisive (to which Bryan and anyone in my family will nod their head yes) and so I decided to give myself some limitations.

1) We wanted the name to start with a C. When doing all of the stationary for the wedding I would sign things A+B (for Ashley and Bryan) and I decided then it would be fun if when we had kids we  named them C,D, E, etc.

2) We wanted the name to not be on the top ten most common names for the last couple of years. When my sweet Mom decided to name me Ashley she had never known an Ashley or taught an Ashley (she had only heard of the name on Happy Days) but apparently so did every other Mom in 1985 because growing up I always had at least one, and often two other Ashleys in my class. We just wanted our son to have a name that isn’t the most common, but also not so weird (Apple, anyone?) that people are like, “what? How do you spell that?” for the rest of his life.

3) And probably most importantly, we wanted the name to have a great meaning- something we could pray over him. We didn’t necessarily want it to be from the Bible, but just wanted to meaning to be cool.

My sweet students knew we wanted a “C” name and even helped us with this amazing list of names on my board. The guys came up with some particularly interesting ones- Crimson Chin, Calculus, Cedric Willard (so he could be called C- Dub, something we always say at Cy- Woods).

We love this because we are praying many things for our son, but the thing we long most of Him is that one day He would follow Jesus, that God, rich in His mercy would save Caleb and make his heart spiritually whole. We are also praying his heart would be physically whole as we found out recently mine is not. We actually go to the doctor tomorrow for a fetal echo (an ultrasound of his heart while he is inside of me…crazy they can do that!) to check out his heart’s anatomy. We are also praying God would sustain my heart through out this pregnancy and delivery and that He would hold my heart together. I have had to see a high risk doctor and a cardiologist for regular check ups and monitoring of my valve. We are hoping and expecting God will take care of me and Caleb, but I have definitely dealt with a little fear when I think about the worst case scenario.

His middle name was easier to decide for us. We really wanted to choose a family name and so we went with Paul. Paul is Bryan’s middle name, his Dad’s name and his Papaw’s name as well. So Caleb Paul will be the 4th in line of Hughes men to carry the name Paul. We pray he would be as strong and hard working as the men before him.  Paul means “small” or “humble” and we pray that no matter how big Caleb is, he would always walk in humility and dependence upon God.

Caleb and Paul are also men in the Bible. Caleb and Joshua were faithful spies and the only ones permitted to enter in the promised land. Caleb also remembers and reminds others of the promises of God (Joshua 14:6). And Paul is probably one of my favorite men from the Bible. His story is actually quite powerful if you have never read it. He was Saul, an extremely religious Jew, persecutor and murderer of Christians before encountering the Risen Lord in a very real way on the road to Damascus (Acts 9). He was forever changed by Christ- becoming Paul and was used in arguably the most mighty of ways to expand the Kingdom of God and advance the Gospel. He wrote most of the New Testament, was extremely bold and ultimately gave his life as Christ gave his.

So Caleb Paul, we pray you will be a whole-hearted, faithful man who humbly and boldly walks with God. We cannot wait to meet you! We love you baby boy.