[ty]
Joseph
One of the best stories of all time is found in Genesis. Even the most talented author with the wildest imagination would be hard pressed to create a more interesting story. When reading through it again in preparation for writing about our son's name I found myself starting right at the story of Joseph, then flipping back a few pages because the story that led up to Joseph was so fascinating as well, then going back even further because of events that led up to that, and so on. I just could not leave out those interesting things so even though I will just very briefly write about them, this is going to be another extremely long post. If you are not interested in reading about the story of Joseph, We have written more generally about our son's name down below (in black writing once again). But I definitely encourage you to read about it, especially if you have never heard it. It is such a great story.
God made a promise to Abraham that he would have as many descendants as he could count the stars in the sky. Abraham and his wife Sarah could not have children, but Abraham had faith in God's promise. Even in their very old age, God fulfilled his promise and gave Abraham and Sarah a son named Isaac. Obviously Abraham loved Isaac very much, even more so because of the circumstances. God wanted to test Abraham's love for Him to see if he was willing to give up his son that he cherished so much in obedience to God. Abraham was willing to do as God asked, but obviously God did not have Abraham go through with it, providing a ram as an offering instead.
When Isaac grew up, through a series of interesting events he found a girl that he fell in love with named Rebekah. Isaac and Rebekah had twin boys named Jacob and Esau. Esau was the firstborn and the Isaac's favourite son, Jacob was Rebekah's favourite son. As the firstborn, Esau was entitled to the father's inheritance but one day after a long day of hunting, Esau pleaded with his brother Jacob for some food. Seeing that his brother was in dire need of some food, Jacob told him that he would only give him the meal if Esau would allow him the inheritance instead. Knowing that the inheritance would be no good to him if he starved to death, Esau agreed to trade it to Jacob. Even though this trade took place, Jacob and Rebekah still needed to trick Isaac into blessing Jacob with his inheritance instead of Esau (who he loved more). So when Isaac was very old and could no longer see, Jacob covered himself in goatskin (as Esau was well documented to be much hairier than Jacob) and received the blessing from his father. Even though he had traded his inheritance to Jacob many years ago, Esau was still very upset that Jacob had deceived their father and claimed his blessing. This prompted Jacob to leave to a neighboring land. Jacob soon fell in love with a girl named Rachel. Rachel's father told Jacob that if he worked for him for seven years he would allow Rachel to marry him. After these seven years Rachel's father deceived Jacob and gave him his other daughter Leah to marry instead. He then told Jacob that if he wanted to marry Rachel he would have to work for him for another seven years. Obviously Jacob loved Rachel so much that he was more than willing to do this (I often thought of this story while Stefanie and I were dating. I was tree planting in Ontario and she was living in Red Deer. If Jacob could work for fourteen years for Rachel, it seemed a little more bearable that I did not get to see Stefanie very often. Although tree planting was really awful, and I did love Stefanie very, very much). So Jacob worked another seven years and after fourteen long years was finally allowed to marry Rachel. After Jacob had many, many, children with a number of women besides Rachel (she was not able to have children), God finally blessed Rachel with a son named Joseph. As harsh as it sounds, because Rachel was the woman who Jacob loved so much from the beginning and worked so hard for, Joseph was Jacob's favourite son.
I skipped a whole bunch of interesting details and it still turned out to be lengthy, but I definitely encourage you to read the whole story found in Genesis if you haven't ever heard it. Now here comes the actual (very amazing) story of Joseph.
When Joseph was seventeen, he had a couple of dreams. In one dream Joseph and his brothers were working in the field when Joseph's grain stood upright and all of his brothers' grain bowed down to it. In the second dream the sun, moon and eleven stars (Jacob, Rachel and the brothers) bowed down to Joseph. When Joseph told his family about the dreams, even Jacob was upset with him. The brothers, who were already jealous that Joseph was their father's favourite son, were even more angry.
One day when all of the brothers were out in the field, they planned to kill Joseph. The oldest brother Reuben did not allow the brothers to kill him, but rather convinced them to throw him down a well (Reuben planned to later rescue Joseph and bring him back to their Jacob). The brothers promised Reuben that they would not kill Joseph, and threw him down the well instead. While Reuben was away, the other brothers sold Joseph as a slave to some travelling merchants. The brothers took Joseph's coat, dipped it in goat's blood and told their father that he had been attacked and killed by a wild animal. Jacob was devastated at the loss of his son Joseph.
The merchants took Joseph to Egypt where he began work for Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officials. Potiphar realized that the Lord gave Joseph success in everything that he did so he put Joseph in charge of his entire house and all of his possessions. Because of Joseph, God blessed Potiphar and his household. As the Bible describes, Joseph was "well-built and handsome" and attracted the attention of Potiphar's wife. Being the upstanding young man that Joseph was, he refused to betray Potiphar's trust and this made his wife very angry. She lied to Potiphar and told him that Joseph assaulted her so Potiphar had him thrown in prison.
Even in prison Joseph gained favour with those in charge and soon he was given the responsibility of all of the other prisoners. Later, the cupbearer and baker of the king of Egypt (who had also been thrown in prison) came to Joseph with dreams that they had. They were both confused because they did not know what their dreams meant. Joseph told them that God would allow him interpret their dreams for them. Joseph interpreted the cupbearer's dream to mean that in three days he would return to his position working for the king. He interpreted the baker's dream to mean that in three days he will be executed. Both of Joseph's interpretations came true.
Two years later Pharaoh himself had a couple of dreams. In one dream there were seven fat cows grazing by a river that were soon swallowed up by seven skinny cows. In another dream seven healthy heads of grain were overtaken by seven unhealthy heads of grain. Pharaoh was very confused as he did not know what the dreams meant. Even the wisest men in Egypt could not interpret the dreams for him. At this time the cupbearer remembered Joseph in prison and how he had correctly interpreted his dream for him two years earlier. He told Pharaoh about Joseph and so Pharaoh called for Joseph to try and interpret his dreams for him. Joseph told Pharaoh that God gave him the ability to interpret dreams and that both of his dreams meant the same thing. He said that the seven fat cows and seven healthy heads of grain represented seven years of abundance in the land of Egypt. The seven skinny cows and seven unhealthy heads of grain represented seven years of famine. Because of this interpretation, Pharaoh was able to store up extra food in the seven years of abundance to provide for Egypt in the seven years of famine.Pharaoh was so pleased with Joseph that he made him responsible for his entire palace.In the entire land of Egypt only Pharaoh was greater than Joseph.
Here is where the story gets really interesting. During the seven years of famine, people came from all around to buy food from Pharaoh that he had stored during the seven years of abundance. Among those seeking food were Joseph's brothers who had sold him as a slave so many years before. Joseph was in charge of distributing food to the people, so when his brothers came to Egypt they bowed down before him (just as he interpreted in his dreams when they were younger). When Joseph saw his brothers he recognized them immediately but they did not know who he was. He kept it a secret from them that he was indeed their younger brother Joseph. Through a series of interesting events, and a couple of trips to and from Egypt, Joseph finally revealed to his brothers who he was and sent for his father Jacob to come to Egypt to see him.
I've skipped over or summarized a lot of details (as the entire story covers thirty or so chapters in Genesis) and there is a ton more great things in there, so go ahead and read the entire thing starting at Genesis 15 :)
Ever since I was a kid, the story of Joseph has always been my favourite story in the Bible and I later learned that it was Stefanie's favourite as well. We had a lot of trouble coming up with a boys name that we both liked, and once we agreed on a first name it still wasn't until much later that we found a middle name. The church that we've been going to in Winnipeg (Soul Sanctuary) has been going through Genesis (for only about two years now) and last month they story of Joseph came up. During the service, I leaned over to Stefanie and said that Joseph should be our middle name for a boy and she told me that she was thinking the exact same thing. And so it was done.
[stef]
It was red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and peach and ruby and olive and violet and fawn...
I'm sure there are more than a few of you that are singing along to this little tune right now.. For those of you who aren't familiar with the score of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, just ignore me.
As Ty mentioned, the story of Joseph is definitely a favorite of mine. It covers so much of what we all deal with on a regular basis - family issues (big ones), jealousy, fancy coats (ok, ok), forgiveness, and mostly that God sees way more than we do, and loves to turn not so good circumstances into something great even if it takes years and years for it to make sense.
[ty]
Hudson
Like I wrote earlier, we had a very tough time finding a boys name. Girls names were easy. We had a girls name that we both loved (Haven) almost as soon as we found out that Stefanie was pregnant. Shortly after this our friends Jonathan and Kimberly had a baby boy and named him Haven (great taste in names I guess), so we were on the hunt once again. It didn't take long to find a new name for a girl that we both really liked (this name is still in the bank). For some reason we did not have the same success for boys names. If Stef really loved a name, I was not particularly fond of it. If I had a name that I really liked, Stef did not share my excitement. For probably the last 3 months before the baby was due we spent the final 15 minutes before bedtime laying there just saying any boys name that we even remotely liked only to have it vetoed by the other person (I will admit that I did a lot more vetoing than Stefanie did).
[stef]
As for the name Hudson, the meaning of names were fairly important to me in my quest to find the right one, but somehow our son ended up with the name he has, despite it's strange meaning. Here it is from a baby name website:
"The name Hudson is a baby boy name. The name Hudson comes from the English origin. In English the meaning of the name Hudson is: Son of the hooded man."
A little creepy, no? But after all, it makes perfect sense, considering how many times I've walked in the room to find Ty playing video games with his hoodie pulled all the way over his head.
[ty]
Wearing the hood from my hoodie makes me feel more involved. Especially if I'm playing a game that involves a lot of sneaking.
A lot of my baseball buddies have already nicknamed Hudson 'the O-Dawg' referring to former Toronto Blue Jays 2nd baseman Orlando Hudson. He is one of my favourite 2nd basemen of all-time and won a Gold Glove as a Blue Jay in 2005. He is currently playing for the Minnesota Twins.
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| Hudson rolled over today from his back to his tummy! |
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