Sam and June.

I had the pleasure last weekend of visiting with a long lost friend.  We grew up across the street from each other, but only became good friends in high school as each of us began to grow in our love for the Lord.

After our family moved back to the States we had one all-too-brief get-together with Amber and her husband, Greg.  They introduced us to Take 5 bars (yum!) and The Settlers of Catan, and then they moved to Texas.  Isn’t that always the way?

When we last saw them we had two girls, and they had no children yet.  Last weekend our four girls got to meet her two boys, and we mommies had a couple of hours to catch up on the last three and a half years.

Among the many things that impressed me about how my dear friend has grown into a wonderful wife and mother was the care she took over choosing her boys’ names.  I don’t mean in choosing names that I think are fabulous names (although they are that, too).  I mean that she really put thought into how she would name all of her children when she set out to name her first child.

Her boys are Samuel Courage and Lucas Wisdom.  Pure loveliness.

Each of her boys has a biblical virtue name for a middle name, *and* each of them has a corresponding Bible verse, which she recites to them at naptimes and bedtimes.  All I could think when I discovered this was, ‘why did I not think of that?!’

Now, our girls are into their names (I know.  You’re shocked, right?).  My mother-in-law has always taken great care to find the girls name-themed gifts and the whole family has now gotten on board with the girls’ name ‘symbols’.  Pippa (Greek, “Lover of horses”) often receives gifts with horses and violets (her middle name) on them.  Romilly has always been showered with either sunshine themed clothes and accessories (her initials spell RAY) or Alice in Wonderland items to go along with her middle name.  Beatrix gets the obvious Beatrix Potter references or the even-more obvious bumblebee motif.  June is a little trickier, but we’ve mainly been working the Junebug = ladybug (which it doesn’t, but who’s counting?) angle, keeping a vague Narnia link up our sleeves via her middle name, Lucy.

But Bible verses for each one?  It was ingenious!  I had to have them!

And so the quest began.  Would it be possible to find a verse for each of my girls’ names that wasn’t either ridiculously obscure or so tenuously connected to the the name that I’d have to spend more time explaining how it’s related than teaching the verse itself?

I think I’ve more or less done it.  What do you think?

Pippa’s verse: Psalm 20:7 (ESV)

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

Romilly’s verse: Isaiah 50:10b (New Living Translation)

If you are walking in darkness, without a ray of light, trust in the LORD and rely on your God.

Beatrix’s verse (Beatrix means “sojourner”, not super useful for clothing and toy shopping, but fabulous here!): Psalm 119:19 (ESV)

I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me!

Juniper’s verse: Isaiah 41:19b-20a (Good News)

Forests will grow in barren land, forests of pine and juniper and cypress.  People will see this and know that I, the Lord, have done it.

It would have been nice if they’d all been the same translation, but I’m still pretty excited about using them to teach my girls some amazing truths about our great God.

I may have to find ones for myself and Trevor.  Jodi means, “See Judith” (or so I thought for years, having looked it up in a name book in elementary school), but once you get past all that, the going theory is that it means, “God is gracious”.  That’s certainly workable.  Or I could utilize the fact that my initials are JLY, Jesus Loves You!  So many possibilities…

Many thanks  to Amber for giving me this brilliant idea, though she likely has no idea I’ve stolen it. May she have many more fabulously named children.  (And if you’d like to suggest middle names for them in the comments, she’s accepting suggestions!)