Baby names are critical in the Ludy family.  We pray about them for months and absolutely refuse to be pressured by family or friends into just slapping on any old name.  To us, a name is a calling, a destiny.  And it is something that only God truly knows. 

So, we go to God and ask Him to share with us our children’s destiny.  He always does.

As many of you may already know, we have ourselves another little boy.  And he arrived via adoption.  If you need to get caught up on the exciting story then here’s some good reading material:

Great Expectations – Leslie’s October 22nd blog entry

The Next Ludy – my October 22nd blog entry

Baby Update – The chronicle of last week’s unforgettable events

Baby Pics – a little photographic peek into our baby-loving world

It has been a surprisingly emotional journey.  Adoption is a serious thing and it affects people in a deep way.  Leslie cried all the way home from the hospital.  And they were tears of pain, simply because she knew Bex (the birth mother) was letting go of her little precious baby.  We were delighted to be bringing a baby home, but our dear friend, Bex, was giving hers up.  Adoption is a beautiful joy, but it is also tinged with a profound grief. 

It hasn’t been all tears though.  In fact we have been laughing a lot through this process.  We arrived home on the night of the 4th (election night).  I’ll never forget the process of getting this little shnuggle-pie ready for bed that first night at home. 

Here’s the quick series of events.  Note: if you are not a parent this may not sound very funny – but, trust me, it was.

•We get baby dressed and swaddled up all nice and cozy for the night 

•Feed baby

•Uh-oh, it sounds like baby is having a little poopy time

•Unswaddle baby and undress baby

•Oh-no, we don’t have any wipes.  Leslie goes on mad search for wipes.

•Eric removes baby’s diaper and lo and behold we were right.  There’s a poopy!

•Leslie finally arrives back with wipes

•New diaper is laid under baby’s bottom, but oh-no!  Baby has more poopy to contribute

•Poopy goes everywhere – all over new diaper, all over pajamas, and all over swaddle blanket

•Leslie goes on hunt for new diaper, new pajamas, and new swaddle blanket

•Eric waits nervously with naked baby, hoping no more poopy comes out

•Leslie arrives back, but oh-no, the cold air has inspired some serious pee-pee activity

•Baby lacquers everything within two square feet (including his scrunched bewildered face) with warm pee-pee

•Eric wipes up the mess

•Eric re-dresses, reswaddles, and comforts Baby

•Baby decides that there is still one bodily orifice that has not contributed to the pandemonium so he spits up all over new swaddle blanket

Leslie and I love baby drama.  It’s hilarious.  And, when you aren’t getting sleep at night, it always helps to laugh.

Bringing Baby home on election night seemed purposeful on God’s part.  He seemed to be making a point to us about this little life.  He’s a life that, just like His Lord, will demonstrate “snatching victory out of the face of seeming defeat.” 

We officially named Baby last night. 

And, by the title of this blog, you may have already figured it out, but we named him Kipling.  Kip for short. 

And there are two key Scriptures that enunciate to us the calling on his little life and therefore the significance for his name. 

Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

2nd Kings 6:16

Behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire . . .” 

2nd Kings 6:17

The passage in 2nd Kings, mentioned above, is so powerful.  Elisha and his servant are surrounded by “a host” of Samarian “horses and chariots.”  There seems to be no possible defense, no way out.  Defeat is imminent.  But Elisha sees something no one else does, he sees a mountain full of heavenly horses and chariots of fire and proclaims to his servant, “Fear not, for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.” 

This is the idea behind the name Kipling.  It is a deep and profound knowing that God will prove victorious even if everything seen with the eyes, heard with the ears, and understood with every other sense, seemingly contradicts such a notion.  Kipling is a name that denotes “utter confidence in God,” “fearlessness,” and “the manly swagger of the Spirit-born.”

It is my prayer that this little boy will have the eyesight of Elisha, the spiritual confidences of Elijah, and the military audacity of David. For, Leslie and I feel strongly that he is called to be light in a dark place, hope in a hopeless occasion, and the one who knows victory is imminent even though defeat seems to have already claimed its prey. 

This world is desperate for Kiplings.  We are longing for men that truly know their God and walk in such a manner that demonstrates the power and might of the King of all Kings. 

We live in a time when the Church of Jesus Christ has lost its swagger, it’s lost its confidence, and its devoid of its Gospel power and punch.   But Kipling is a name that heralds a returning confidence, a regained morale to the troops of God, and a reinvigoration of that ancient Lion-like roar of the twice-born of God.

Do I sound like a proud papa?   Well, I am.  And I love the fact that God takes whatever I consecrate to Him and He makes it a thousand times greater than anything I could have ever dreamed up.  That’s just His way.  And that will be His way with my new little baby boy. 

Babyhood is such a wonderful time.  It’s full of laughter, tears, and the enthralling vision of what soon will be.  God has commissioned me to not raise my boys to be ordinary and everyday, but to be outrageously different.  He’s asked me to build warrior-poets, bravehearted heroes that know the power of their God and demonstrate the epic wonder of our God in the land of the living. 

This is a time of great rejoicing in the Ludy house.  For, in an amazing way, our eyes have been opened to see the mighty heavenly host and the chariots of blazing fire that surround us.  And we are certain that, though the Church seems weak and the moorings of truth have eroded, great victory is just around the bend. 

So here’s my rough-hewn birth announcement for the little guy:

Kipling Joel Anthony is born!

Let the earth take note – the infantile form of a great and mighty man is

eating, sleeping, pooping, pee-peeing, and spittin-up in Windsor, Colorado! 

Let the demons tremble and let the righteous rejoice!”  

PS – Joel is the name that Bex (the birth mother) has always wanted to name her son.  She never knew her grandfather, whose name was Joel, but he’s a legendary person in her life and she’s always wished to honor him.  Anthony is the name of the birth father.  And it is our strong desire that little Kipling Joel Anthony will know his birth father and share in relationship with this man, loving and respecting him always.