You may remember that each of our children has a special Bible verse related to the meaning of her name.  (Niko has one too, more on that later!)

(Gorgeous birth announcement by Megan - thank you!)

Coraline’s name (which we relate to the Latin word “cor” for heart) posed us a unique problem: unlike “horse” or “ray” or “sojourner” or “juniper”(!), there are so many fantastic Bible verses containing the word heart!  And not just random verses that happen to have that word, awesome, powerful, life-altering, worthy-of-memorization life-verse-type-verses.

My handy-dandy Greek lexicon tells me that the Greek word “kardia” is a word much bigger than our own word for heart.  It is “the seat of feelings, affection, desire, intellect”, “the inner mental frame”, “the conscience”, “the inner part”, “the center.”  No wonder scripture contains so many compelling verses about it.  It is the very core of who we are – the part that longs for God and the part that He requires us to reserve only for Him.

Here are just a few of the gems I came across in searching for the perfect verse for Coraline.

But from there you will seek the LORD your God and you will find him, if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul. – Deuteronomy 4:29 (ESV)

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. – Deuteronomy 6:5 (ESV) (The big girls were pulling hard for this one – they know a song about it.)

(Deuteronomy alone is full of great heart verses!)

Only fear the LORD and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you. – 1 Samuel 12:24 (ESV)

But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. – Psalm 13:5 (ESV)

Search Me, O God, and Know My Heart O LORD, you have searched me and known me! – Psalm 139:1 (ESV)

I even love what the gospel-writer Luke says of Mary, Christ’s mother: But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart. – Luke 2:19 (ESV)  How often these words come to my mind as I treasure up all the incredible things God has done in my own life!

But the one heart passage I kept coming back to, the one that just felt like the right one to pray would become a life verse for our sweet girl, was this one:

…but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  – Matthew 6:20-21 (ESV)

I blogged about these verses here a very long time ago, and I have thought of them often since then.  How we long to see Coraline (to see all of our children!) store up their treasure in heaven rather than fill up on the emptiness that this world has to offer.  And there their hearts will also be.