Names

What is the story behind your name? 

Ask your parents one day, and listen to the painstaking detail they took to give you your name.  Even better, ask the parents of an unborn baby.  It's a good way to fill about 15 minutes of time, if you ever get the chance.  Just use those simple words, "Have you thought about a name?"  Try it sometime and see how important our names are.

Speaking of Solomon's temple, God told the people of Israel, "My Name shall be there" (1 Kings 8:29).  He told Moses in Exodus 6, "I am the LORD.  I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them".  He ws the same God to the patriarchs, but when the time was right, He revealed to His people His Name.  Doesn't this make all the difference?  Names breadth, depth, meaning, and (most importantly) personhood.  We are not just made, loved, saved, and redeemed by a power, or even an entity.  Our God is a person (3, to be precise).  This intimacy of the knowledge of knowing who God is holds the key to us know who we are, and who we are to become.  "Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD...." (Hosea 6:3)

Names are important to God.  Now that we are praying, thinking, talking (and blogging!) about our future new addition, we wanted to come up with some sort of name or nickname so we would not have to constantly refer to our child as "he or she" or "it" or "the child/baby."  At this point our home study states we are seeking to be matched with a healthy 0-3 year-old boy or girl.  We figured since we didn't "choose" the genders of our biological children, we wouldn't do it with our adopted one either, and age-wise we have decided to maintain our current birth order.  When we are matched with our child, he or she will already have a given name, which we can choose to keep, incorporate as a middle name, or replace with our chosen name.  We will probably wait and see what the given name is of our child before making a final decision about what our child will be called.  Don't forget that God was pleased to change the names of some of his special children (Abram, Sarai, Jacob, Simon, Saul)! In the meantime, we have been considering possible names, just like we did when we found out we were expecting our biological children.

Micah is confident that her new sibling will be a girl and her name will be Ariel.  As a matter of fact, she tells us multiple times a day that God has told her she will have a baby sister named Ariel.  She has been consistently telling us this for weeks now.  After a trip to Disney World in December, we assumed she got the name from the princess of the sea.  The name Ariel didn't really appeal to us, so we didn't think much of it at first.  About two months ago I decided to humor her and look up the meaning of the name.  I like names that have significance of some sort (outside the realm of Disney).  So, I looked up the name and this is what I found: Ariel is a Hebrew name meaning "Lion of God."  What a strong name for a strong child who has endured the circumstances that led to her being an orphan, whatever those might be.  Jesus is referred to as the Lion of Judah in the Bible.  Ethiopia happens to be one of the top 7 countries (all in Africa) believed have the most lions living in the wild.  Ariel is also another name for the holy city of Jeruselum as mentioned in Isaiah 29:1 (Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David settled!)  Obviously we cannot deny the significance of this name and we have decided if Micah does get her baby sister, she will have to be named Ariel!

We have chosen Simon as our boy name for the multiple significant (to us) Biblical references.  The Hebrew name means "he who hears."  Simeon (another form of Simon) was one of the 12 tribes of Israel, as well as the voice of the beautiful words, "For my eyes have seen your salvation...." in Luke 2:30.  My favorite disciple was Simon (Peter), who was bold and passionate.  Whatever he did, he did it whole-heartedly, and he lived and died for Christ.  What initially gave us the idea of the name Simon occurred when our family watched "The Bible" on the History Channel in the weeks leading up to Easter.  After traveling hundreds of miles for Passover, Simon of Cyrene (located in Africa) was forced to help Jesus carry the cross, which would have made him unclean to take part in Passover.  It is no doubt that his experience had a profound impact on him.  Simon is specifically mentioned to have two sons, Rufus and Alexander, which is significant because typically men were identified by their fathers, not their sons.  It is speculated that at the time the gospel was written, the reader would have been familiar with Rufus and Alexander.  Paul mentions a missionary named Rufus in Romans, and it is believed that this may be Simon of Cyrene's son.  Either way, the significance of Simon of Cyrene Biblically is evident by the fact he was mentioned and identified by name.

God already knows the name of our fourth tree.  He has planned within His perfect purpose who it will be, when it will be, and how it will be.  We do not know these details yet, but we do know that the One whose Name is above all names does.  We eagerly wait His gift. Please pray for our adoption journey and for Simon/Ariel!  We can't wait to meet you!