A New Name

Here is an excerpt from a letter that I sent to our baby's birth mother recently that I would like to share with you as well:

Over the past few months as Paul and I have gotten to know Alana, prayed for her, and asked God what He says about her (as we do for all our children), we have constantly gotten the impression that she is His treasure, His crown, his precious pearl. We speak and sing this identity over her every day. We are so honored to be entrusted with someone that He prizes so highly.

One thing that we have realized during this time is that we feel the need to give her a name in addition to the beautiful name that you gave her. As her parents, we want to impart to her an identity as part of our family. We feel that if we do not name her ourselves, we will not be giving her what is her right as our child: a name from her parents' hearts and from God's heart to her through us. We have been praying about this and felt led to these verses in Isaiah 62, "... You'll get a brand-new name straight from the mouth of GOD. You'll be a stunning crown in the palm of God's hand, a jeweled gold cup held high in the hand of your God" (verses 2-3). We were amazed that so much of what the Lord has spoken to us about her was right there in these verses! We looked up the Hebrew word for crown and found the name we were looking for: Atarah, which means "crown."

I hope that you understand our hearts in this. We still love Alana Michelle and will keep those as her middle names. We believe that God spoke those names to you as an important part of her identity. And He used them to help us know that she was meant to be our daughter! We will simply add another name and she will be Atarah Alana Michelle. (Plenty long name for a little girl whose life is already making a big impact!)

We heard back from Jennifer soon after sending the letter, and she told us that she loves the new name! Atarah likes it too. We call her Atarah, Alana, Tah-Tah, Precious Pearl, Princess, etc. God is good!