So when our detailed scan revealed that it was a girl, we were totally thrown off guard. We didn't have any name in mind this time round but we still had our few criterias. ND, as usual, came up with lots of corny names. There weren't that many female characters left in the bibles with nice and "normal" sounding names. ND shortlisted Rachel and Esther. He said that they were both said to be beautiful in the bible. (Ya, ND and his obsession to have beautiful girls...) and in his own corny way, he thought it was a "plus" point that Rachel was the mother of Benjamin (although she died in childbirth whilst giving birth to Benjamin) and Esther the Queen came from the tribe of Benjamin in the bible. I thought the names were ok... but somehow not very sure about them yet.
Then during one of our bible study sessions, we were studying the book of James and the topic that night was on Wisdom. And we learned that "Sophia" is the Greek word for "Wisdom". And somehow something clicked and we both thought that the name sounded nice and it was meaningful. We do hope that our girl will grow up wise and be able to discern the things of this world. So the name got included in our shortlist along with Rachel and Esther. Well, we kinda sat on it for a short while more and eventually, we decided that ya, we liked Sophia the most amongst the names that we had shortlisted. Well, we do think the name is very apt for her now considering that with her birth, many times we had to seek God for wisdom on the decisions that we were going to make.
As for her name 乐恩, we decided to continue to use 乐 (le/ joy) as the middle character. We were back to the drawing board on the last character to use. This time round, ND says perhaps we should choose a more gentle sounding character. This is on hindsight after we had Sarah. Now we think that actually the word 宣 seems like a very strong character and it's actually quite reflective of how Sarah is... strong-willed, resilient and feisty. ND thinks that our hands will really be full if we have another girl who's going to be as tough a cookie as Sarah. Ya, and of coz poor Caleb will be "eaten" up by his 2 sisters if they both turn out to be so feisty.
Anyway, the few days before I delivered, again, I was lying in bed and thinking about Sophia's birth and pondering about the options that we could take and then I felt inspired to name her 乐恩(En/ grace). I felt that in view of the circumstances, truely we had to depend on the grace of God to provide us with a smooth and safe delivery.
And actually, it doesn't just apply to Sophia's birth. In the course of our walk as parents, many times we find that there's just so much that we can do. We can try our best to provide for our children, give them what we think is the best, do our best to bring them up well and teach them, but at the end of the day, there are still many circumstances and situations that we face that are beyond our control. Like we can try to give them the best food and nutrition but we cannot guarantee that they will never fall sick. We can try to put them in the most positive environment and try to screen through the company they mix with but unless we tie them to ourselves and eyeball them every single minute, we cannot guarantee that they will never be exposed to negative influences.
In this journey of ours, we find that time and again, we have to turn to God to ask for his grace and trust that He is in control of all things and He will take care of our children and use us to bring them up right with Him.
So as we pondered over the character 恩(En/ grace), we decided that yah, that's what we'll name her. Other than us asking for God's grace for a smooth and safe delivery and a healthy baby, we also hope that 乐恩 will be able to experience the joy of the Lord and His grace for herself in her life and share it with people around her.
