In God's "Waiting Room" (Part 5: What's in a Name?)

"A good name is better than precious ointment..." - Ecclesiastes 7:1a

A dear friend - who himself is a father of four beautiful children - once commented that other than our faith and our deep love for God and His Word, there are perhaps only a few things we can leave for our children, a deep and meaningful name being one of them. I believe he is right. Materials fade, skills may be forgotten, advices ignored...but a name sticks forever. Even after we are long "gone", the first thing people still remember us by is our given name. 

Early on in our pregnancy we began to think of names for the baby we are expecting. Because I'd been wishing we were having another girl so that Eleanor could have a life-long best friend, picking a girl's name was fairly easy and we had settled for one. Jim was considering a couple of boy's names but we hadn't decided on a specific one just yet. Then, soon after we learned about our unborn baby's diagnosis along with the gender, I felt the urgency to pick a more fitting name given the heart breaking prognosis. 

Even though medically speaking the prognosis seems so final, we are still clinging onto Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord our Healer, and trusting in Him, our loving Father to give us strength and the faith to accept whatever His will may be for our baby and for our family. With that in mind, we went back to the drawing board to name our unborn precious child. Not long after, Jim sent me the following via email: 

I would like to name our daughter "Eve".  It is an English/French form of a Hebrew name "Chava", which is derived from "chai" meaning "life".  Of course Eve is the first woman, and the mother of all people, the one who gave birth to all human life.  

As we struggle with our little one between life and death, I want us to hope "life" for her, that God would bestow glorious "life" upon her. "Eve" recalls life that is shortened and yet life gained for all eternity in our gracious God as He receives into His loving arms His covenant child.

"Eve" is also short for "evening," referring to a time of anticipation for the following event. For our Eve, she can look forward to her dwelling in God's presence, in glory, and future resurrection, and future reunion with her parents and sister.

In the Bible, the first mention of a woman is simply that she is a "female" (Heb. neqebah) [Gen.1:27].  Even when Adam sings of her creation [Gen.2:22] made from his rib, and in all subsequent mentions [Gen.2:24; 3:1...], she is simply a woman/wife/(Heb. ishshish).  

Of course, we know that she and Adam fell in sin and were cursed and expelled from the Garden in chapter 3, but as soon as God's curse/gospel was pronounced, Adam's immediate next move was that of faith and hope by naming his wife the "mother of all living"/(Heb. havvah)/"Eve" [Gen.3:20].  

Adam, the first man who was cursed but heard the gospel, gave Eve her special name.  This testifies that all is not lost, but that "life" will continue even after death.  After our faint life in this broken and accursed world, we can look forward to our true and abundant life in glory!

I couldn't have agreed more with Jim's pick. I thought it was perfect as it is a constant reminder to us that our Father in Heaven is the creator of life and in control of it, in the present and in the one to come. 

For the middle name we wanted to keep the first syllable the traditional Korean family character passed down to our children's generation, which has the sound hae, therefore picking the Hebrew name Hanna which means "favour" or "grace". So our littlest baby girl's full name is Eve Hanna Jung - a life graced by God, or a life in God's favour - and she shares the same initials as her big sister, making it that much more special.