For the last few weeks I have been studying the story of Caleb in the Bible. It's not a well known story so let me try and paraphrase it.
Caleb is introduced in Numbers 13. Moses and the people of Israel had been traveling to Canaan which was the land that God had promised to them. God spoke to Moses and told him to send one man from each of the twelve tribes to check out the land to see if it was fertile and if it was inhabited. One of the men that Moses appointed was Caleb. He and eleven other men left for 40 days to check on the land. When they returned, they brought proof of the fruitfulness and agreed that the land flowed with milk and honey just as God had promised. When they spoke about the people there though ten of the men recommended that Moses and the Israelites not pursue the land because the people who lived there were big, strong, and in great numbers. Caleb then quieted the crowds and tried to convince them that if this was the land that God had promised then they should go. The other men were more convincing to the crowd though and Moses finally gave in and said that they would not go to Canaan as God had commanded. Because of Moses and the Israelites choice to rebel against God, the Lord punished the entire group causing them to wander in the desert for 40 years until all the adults at the time died. The only exception was made for Caleb and Joshua (another of the twelve spies) because they remained faithful even when things seemed impossible.
This story has really hit home for Ryan and I this past year. So many times in the last year I am sure we looked like crazy idiots that were making poor decisions but we felt strongly that this was God's plan for us. Here are a few examples...
*Spend thousands of dollars on a remodel to our house in a down market so that we could hope to put it for sale.
*Move out of our house and in with my mom and instead trust tenants to take care of our house not knowing what our future would hold.
*Move to Lubbock with two weeks notice and only a week before Christmas so that I could take a part time job even though we had no potential job for Ryan lined up.
*Continue the house selling process with a buyer that was more than difficult when most would have walked away.
*Ryan turned down several full time job offers from companies here in Lubbock due to reasons that were hard to explain but mostly just because we were not at peace.
*Allow God to have complete control over our family including the possibility of more children in the future even though we were not financially stable.
In all these situations any number of people could have questioned if we were really following God's lead or were we making choices for our own motivation. Many of our dearest Christian friends did in fact ask, but Ryan and I continued to seek the Lord's direction and follow Him no matter how crazy we appeared to society. God just "showed up" too many times for us to question Him.
*We were able to pay off all the house repairs with Ryan's second job
*Blessed to have a place to live for several months that allowed for us to save money and rest with our preemie little girl
*My job was flexible enough to make the move easier and to work more when need be and then decrease when we could. Also, the care of therapy we received due to living in Lubbock was so much better for Little Sis.
*Eventually selling our house and bringing less than $1000 to the table.
*Ryan finding the most AMAZING job, exactly as he could desire and with great potential.
*Have unexplainable peace with being pregnant with our third child even though the future is unknown.
So now back to the story of Caleb. As you might imagine I have felt a strong connection to this story as I have been reading and studying more about this great follower of God. So when Ryan and I started talking about names for this new bundle of joy, Caleb was first on my mind. It only took a little persuasion to get Ryan on board (he got to chose the middle name). With that we are proud to announce the name of our third child....
CALEB ANDREW GRAVES!
