Annabel Brave
Our first family camping trip was April 2016. We were at Kruger National Park, and it was hot. We went on morning and evening game drives, and sat in the pool during the heat of the day. Pure Ladd Family bliss. Chris and I had only been married for 7 months, and we were perfectly content as a family of three.
As we plopped ourselves into the campsite pool one morning, I told Chris that God had given me a funny vision during the night. “I think He showed me that our first biological child’s middle name should be Brave.” My handsome husband did not look at me like I was as crazy as I felt. He just said, “I always thought God would give you the names of our children.” And that was it. We never talked about it again.
I remember the vision well. I could see the letters in my mind “A. Brave”. I knew the first baby God gave us together would be a girl, and her first name would start with an A. Then life carried on as usual.
In March this year, I bombarded my sister with picture messages of my home pregnancy tests. Plural. I took so many. We were pregnant! It was the most exciting answered prayer of all time. There was a miracle growing like a secret inside of me. In the short 5 ½ weeks of that pregnancy, God restored that Kruger Park vision and completed the name in my heart.
I was carrying a miracle, and her name was Annabel Brave.
I never even had time to tell Chris because she left my body so quickly. (Here’s the story of when We Gave Heaven a Free One.) I remember thinking during the miscarriage and over and over again in the months that followed, “That couldn’t have been Annabel Brave. She never had a reason to be brave. She went straight to heaven.”
I grieved hard and long, but I never shared her name with another soul on earth. It couldn’t have been her. She didn’t have a reason to be brave. I buried her name at the very bottom of my heart, too fragile and personal to say out loud.
A few months later, we got pregnant again! I felt a strange mixture of joy and fearfulness. I was afraid to give my whole heart to this baby inside of me – because Annabel Brave held the bottom of it.
We cried with relief when we heard the heartbeat and saw a perfect healthy baby at our 12-week scan. The doctor told us it was a boy, and I was shocked. I love the idea of having a brother for Lifa and could very happily have a house full of boys. But… not a girl? In a new wave of grief, I had to recognize that this baby was not and could not be Annabel Brave. Annabel Brave is already in heaven.
I had to face the beautiful and painful truth: God loved her so much that He named her long before we ever dreamt of her. He created Annabel Brave with a whole-life purpose, not to die before she was born. The enemy comes to steal, kill and destroy, and it is not God’s design for our families. Annabel Brave was created for a beautiful, bold purpose on this earth but went straight to heaven instead.
I sat down with my husband and ugly-cried while I told him his first daughter’s God-breathed name. With him and with God, I had to grieve the loss of her whole-life, whole-purpose design. She was not a baby or a pregnancy. She is a named and beloved daughter. She is separate and as special as Lifa and as our up and coming baby boy.
It is breathtaking that our God holds a place in His heart for each one of us. He is stretching my heart for our three children now: Lifa, Annabel Brave, and the 16-week old son I carry with me everywhere I go. How amazing that we can carry hope, joy, sorrow, and so many other shades of love at one time. I wanted you to know Annabel Brave’s name. Because it’s beautiful and because she matters.
Annabel Brave might have never needed a reason to be brave, but because of her, I do. Now I know – and I can’t un-know - that every, single person was created with a name and a purpose. Loving fully is risky and sometimes sorrowful. And we were made to love bravely.
Annabel Brave, your mama has learned so much about love from you. I will spend the rest of my days trying to love bravely. You’ve left a legacy on earth from heaven.