At church two weeks ago, The Husband and I closed our eyes along with everyone else as our pastor prayed, then we jabbed each other like kids at the dinner table when he mentioned our names and prayed for our pregnancy. I felt my face flame up a little bit, because that’s what happens whenever I feel the spotlight of unexpected attention fall on me (along with an unflattering and hormonally-enhanced level of underarm sweat; that happens too), and then I felt profound gratitude to finally be a part of a community that knows my name, even when that knowledge leads to a little discomfort. We are known, we are prayed for, we are kept. There is such great beauty in that.

Then last week, same pastor, same time of prayer, same closed eyes. This time, though, news of another couple who had miscarried, a dream finally realized only to be shattered on the floor. Their names uttered aloud and lifted up. I thought about our nursery freshly painted blue, the sound of our son’s heartbeat three days ago, the kicking now in my belly, abundance and loss coexisting in the same community. What it means to be known and kept, how to believe that whether we are walking in apparent darkness or light.

I grew up going to a church where one could sneak in and take a seat in the back and leave without ever having to interact with another person, and that is the style of living I find most comfortable: introversion, coming and going at will, never being asked to give too much. Now, when I step forward to take the bread and cup, I hear that He was given for me, my name uttered in my ear by someone who knows it, talking about Someone who knows me, and though it startles me out of my comfort zone, I am thankful. I know there are all different types of communities and all kinds of ways to show up on Sunday and in life, but I am thankful to have finally landed in a place where I am recognized. God knew I needed it, this reminder that I did not just happen, some random distribution of cells and molecules; but that I was always intended, designed from the beginning, that to him I have always had a name. No matter what is happening around me.

TH and I, at that heartbeat visit last week, were asked by the doctor if we had any questions, and I looked to see my better half’s grin at the one he knew I wanted to ask, the issue we had been lobbing back and forth since the first trimester and its accompanying anxieties transformed into the preparation of Now. So I asked it: “What about a few sips of wine on the weekend?” And I expected a stern look and pat answer. What I got instead was a smile and permission. And one of my favorite quotes yet from a health care professional: “If there’s anything wrong with him, it’s not going to be because you had a few sips of wine on a Saturday night.” I turned triumphantly to TH, who laughed, because that’s some language I understand: the imperfections that we can’t control, the flaws that were built in long before we had a say. I’ve had my hands pried away in recent years as I’ve learned what sovereignty means, as I’ve seen what I called shortcomings in a new light, as I’ve learned redemption by walking through it. My eyes that shift back and forth, my inclination to take things too seriously, my pregnancy getting in the way of work–each of these, and countless others, have been met with balance and blessing, whispers of truth and moments of joy beyond what I could have, would have, planned. And so it will be with this little boy, that his design is for something greater than perfection, that his purpose is beyond our ability to imagine or screw up. He has a mother who helps maintain her sense of humor with wine, and a Harvard-educated father who can narrate an exhaustive history of the East Coast-West Coast rap feud. He is surrounded by love from friends who wish us well, celebrating us in the midst of their own struggles. People who live life well and imperfectly, under clouds of insecurity and inability and infertility, because we all have the things we would change–and they happen to help make us exactly who we were designed to be.

We have given our son a name and we call him by it now, so that the kicks and constant peeing and wine-limiting have a proper noun to be pinned on. And so an imperfect and beautifully-designed identity begins.