I was recently preparing for a women's retreat and decided to do some research into the names of the women that would be attending in my group. While I'm not sure why these women were given their names - it could have been that they were named after someone in their family or maybe it was their parents' wish or prayer that they would some day live out the meaning - it was interesting to me how many of the women's names seemed to fit their current personalities or character qualities.
I know many stories in the Bible where God changed the name of an individual, so that it more accurately described their character or experience. In the Old Testament, God changed Abram's name to Abraham. While Abram meant "exalted father," Abraham meant "father of many." This name change was significant, as God told Abraham that he would be the "father of many nations," even though he had no descendants at that time.
I was also interested to discover the meaning of my own name. Did you know that Sybil means Prophetess. I think I may have discovered this before, but it didn't have any real meaning for me until now. Although I am not claiming to be making any significant prophecy, I do feel more like an inspired teacher now than I have at any other point in my life.
This subject of names and their meanings also came up in a conversation between E and I recently. She was asking about her name and those of her brother and sister. She was interested in the significance of their names. For all of our children, we chose their first names based on our own preferences and the desire for them to have names that were not too typical, but also not super-crazy or difficult to pronounce. Each of their middle names, however, have meaning to us.
E's middle name comes from the combination of three of her grandparents middle names. O is named after his daddy; his middle name is M's first name. E understood and had heard those stories before, but was wondering why A's middle name is Faith. So, I told her the story. A story that I don't share often. A story I don't think about much, anymore. But was necessary in order to answer E's question.
I told her that before A was born, I had another baby living in my tummy. But, that baby died. She wanted to know if it was a boy or a girl. I told her I didn't know, that the baby had been too little. She just looked at me, her eyes betraying her feelings. I told her that her dad and I were very sad. But, because we loved God and knew that he loved us, we had trusted Him.
Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him.
Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught,
and you will overflow with thankfulness. - Colossians 2:7-8
Although I didn't even know there was a baby until the time of my miscarriage, it was devastating. It scared me. I mean, what if I was never meant to have children? Would this be the first of many miscarriages? It made me realize that I wasn't in control. I didn't know God's plan for my life, for my family.
So, when my sister, on the way home from a Christmas Eve service, less than a month before A was born, suggested the name Faith for our girl's middle name, we loved it immediately. After all, she had been conceived in faith. The miscarriage had left us with an abundance of fears and questions. Would God ever allow us to be parents? We had a choice to make. Were we going to make decisions about our future family based on fear or based on faith?
I had a very wise professor once who defined faith this way, "Faith is acting as if what you believe is true." I have held these exact words in my mind for nearly 20 years. Faith is not just belief. Faith is action. Faith is not simply being. It is acting.
My hope, for all my children, not just A...is that they would live, act like, what they've been taught, what they believe, is the truth. To take their thoughts beyond the boundaries of their minds. To move into the truth, so that they can experience God's promises and faithfulness.
This is also my prayer for you, whatever your name.
