A Good Name

"A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold." -Proverbs 22:1

There are a multitude of responsibilities that come with being a parent. Too many to even begin to list them all. For us, as is the case for many expectant parents, one of the most important seems to be choosing a name for our child. There are so many ways a name can go. Should it be unique or common? Old-fashioned or trendy? In honor of a relative or completely off the cuff? Will the child be taunted for their name?

MM and I had our girl name pretty much settled a few weeks after we found out a beautiful baby was in our future. The boy name? That wasn't so easy. We went through tons and even had a ranking system to try and settle on one. We landed on two and were going to save deciding for when we found out the gender or on delivery day.

As it turns out, all that frustration was for naught. We found out today that behbeh is a little princess of the King and our girl name is firm in our hearts. Even so, we made the mistake of telling some family and, of course, that name was met with various degrees of reaction. One reaction in particular made this mama mad. I shared my frustration on Facebook, without naming or indicating who the offending person was, of course, and was met with an outpouring of support.

One of my favorite forms of support were these words from my beautiful sister, who we'll call The Crowbar. Her response to me was, "I'm praying for you and [MM], and the baby. I know you will choose the right name for the baby, and think of it this way, when we all get to heaven, old things are forgotten and God fives us all brand new names anyway. So yay! God-given names - those will have to be super awesome."

And you know what, she is exactly right. Our earthly names aren't nearly as important as we make them out to be. Of course it hurts if our names lead to teasing, or if family members don't like them, but that pain can be countered by the immeasurable joy of a life in Heaven, all we have to do is choose Jesus. Then our earthly name does not matter. Then we are a beloved child of God, with a special name that our heavenly Father has chosen just for us. As parents, it is the job of MM and I to give our child(ren) the chance to know of Christ's sacrifice and salvation through him. Yes, all of those other parenting responsibilities are important, but none so important as this.