What’s in a Name?

If you’ve known me very long, you probably know I’m a little crazy about names.

I think a name is basically a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Naming our kids has been a big deal, and not just the name itself.  Each of our kids have different verses that go with their names that we have prayed over them.  To explain each of my kids names is at least a five minute spiel including Hebrew and Greek definitions.

Adoption has always been on the table for us.  It’s woven in and out of conversation very naturally since we were dating.  We discussed adoption before our daughter, after a couple of miscarriages and a fear of having another boy (I had two very active boys under 5 and had cleaned a lot of poop off walls).  We thought we’d give it another go, and lo and behold, girl!  I think we both thought we were done.  Surgery was done, baby toys given away, we were closing up shop and moving on to the next phase of life.

Until the fall of 2012.

Everyone says once you get your kiddos file and learn about their background that it’s eerie how dates start to line up.

Chris’s mom had passed away quickly and unexpectedly of cancer the spring before fall of 2012.  We were grieving HARD.  Not to mention still adjusting to life with 3 (our daughter was born just 6 weeks before she passed away), and several other unexpected transitions that were being thrown our way. It was a tough season.

I was participating in a bible study by Kelly Minter on the book of Ruth.  (for the life of me though, I do not get why the book of the bible is called Ruth…the whole story is about Naomi) I had learned the Sunday School version of the story of Ruth and Naomi, but it was a game changer to dive in deep.

Nancy (Chris’s mom) had always said we were like Ruth and Naomi. Naomi was Ruth’s mother in law, and they had a special relationship.

Naomi in Hebrew means lovely and congenial.  At the start of the book though, we see her in a place of brokenness.  She has lost her husband and both sons, she is homeless and has no way of providing for herself.  She is in a very dark and very broken place.  As she rolls back into Jerusalem, she tells all her old friends “do not call me Naomi (lovely/congenial/pleasant) call me Mara (bitter), for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me. (Ruth 1:20).  Throughout the book, while Ruth does her thing and we see a sweet love story unfold, there is also thing ongoing subplot of Naomi’s restoration.  We watch her grapple for control, trying to manipulate her own destiny.  We watch her struggle with God to trust again, we watch her heart soften and open both to Ruth and Boaz.  We watch her hope again.  Then at the end of the book, her friends who had gossiped about her just a few chapters earlier now speak this declaration and prophecy over her life: “Blessed be the Lord who has not left you this day without a redeemer, and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life…” (Ruth 4:14-15).

I wrote down the name Naomi at the top of my bible study book.  As I walked through that study, I felt that God had given me a name, and a vision of things to come.

May He be to you a restorer of life.

At the end February of 2013, I was so gripped by the study I had just walked through, I turned around and led about 30 women through the study on the book of Ruth.  We started each weekly meeting with a woman sharing part of her story of how the Lord had been a restorer of life to her.  I was overwhelmed by this theme of of God being a restorer and a redeemer of all things, it was woven into just about everything I did in those next few months.

It turns out, as I was starting that study, that was about the same time our sweet Naomi was making her presence known in her mama’s tummy.  As I was consumed with the idea of God redeeming all things, her sweet broken heart that would need restoration in so many ways was being formed.

Our daughters story starts in brokenness and grief.  Tears are streaming as I write that.  I wish I could take that part of her story away for her.  I want so badly for her story to start somewhere else than where it does.  With smiles and happiness and pink baby toes. I want her to have only known love and care.

However, that isn’t her story.

But we believe that God is a redeemer.  Of ALL things.  That though her story starts with pain and grief, that He will be a restorer of life.  Our prayer is that she will not be known as Mara (bitter), but as lovely, congenial and pleasant.  That she will know her redeemer and will praise Him for being a restorer of life to her.  And that out of ashes and dust that God will make a beautiful thing.  That in her pain, she will find her purpose.

Our daughter will be named Naomi.  In the memory of someone deeply loved and admired, in the awareness that by giving her a name in honor of a familial legacy that we are fully adopting her into not just our immediate family, but the heritage and legacy of those who have come before us.  She will be named Naomi in the hopes that God would show up and do big things and make the title of Redeemer and Restorer known to her in a personal and intimate way, and known to others through her life and testimony.

And we haven’t even gotten to her middle name 🙂