The Story of Her Name

Sixteen years ago, Jeff and I met and fell in love in the enchanting city of Jerusalem.  His first marriage proposal to me was delivered at the Western Wall which stands at the base of a very special place:  Mount Moriah.

More than ten years ago, before any of our children were born, we decided that the name we would give to our first daughter would be Moriah.  We had already chosen Josiah as the name of our first son (actually, that was chosen by Jeff before he had even met me)  ;-)  so when I got pregnant with our first child, we knew that we would either have a Josiah or a Moriah.

When I was pregnant with David, but before we knew he was a boy, I thought to myself that we might get to have our Josiah and Moriah.

While pregnant with Tobin, but before we found out that we were being blessed with a third son, I said the possible roll call in my head:  Josiah, David, Moriah.

When we were given another pregnancy so soon after Tobin, we chose to not find out the sex of the baby, so up until the birth, I wondered if we might have Josiah, David, Tobin, Moriah.

All along, it's been the name of our girl.  We've never wavered on that.  

With each addition of a boy to our family, we have rejoiced and given thanks for the gift of another son.  It feels so right to have Josiah, David, Tobin, Shav.  We wouldn't trade any of them for anything, for they are treasures more precious than all the riches of the world, made even more valuable by the fact that they are EXACTLY what God planned for us to have.  

How amazing that God's plan was for us to now have a girl.

Nineteen days ago, she was born; and we named her Moriah.

Moriah Davene, to be exact.  Although we didn't have to think twice about her first name, we did spend some time considering other names for her middle one.  In the end, however, we decided to give her my name; after all, there aren't very many Davene's running around, and we'd love to see that name continue.  ;-)  Besides, it means "beloved," and that's certainly an accurate description of our sweet girl!

Moriah means "God is my teacher," and at surface level, that's definitely what we want God to be for our Moriah.  We pray that she will be taught of the Lord all the days of her life!  But on a deeper level, we think of all the significant lessons that God taught His people on that oh-so-special mount in Jerusalem; and we yearn for our Moriah to learn these lessons in the core of her being.

The first mention of Mount Moriah is in Genesis 22, when God instructs Abraham to take his son Isaac--"whom you love"--to Moriah to sacrifice him there as a burnt offering.  Of course, in the end, God spares the life of Isaac and provides another sacrifice, and there are all kinds of lessons to be learned from this incident.  We hope that Moriah will follow the example of Abraham and always put God first, above any earthly or familial allegiance.

From the life of David comes another important happening on Mount Moriah.  The story is less known than the one of Abraham and Isaac, but it's a powerful one (found in 2 Samuel 24) that involves a plague on the people of Israel, a destroying angel who stands at the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite (which is on Mount Moriah), a God who relents and has mercy, and King David who buys the threshing floor from Araunah in order to build an altar to God on it.  There is much that could be said about this chapter whose setting is Moriah, but tonight I'll simply mention that verse 24 is my favorite.  In it, David turns down the offer of Araunah to give him the land and the materials for the sacrifice.  Instead, David proclaims, "I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing."

When we get to 2 Chronicles 3, we see that David's son Solomon is building the Temple for the Lord in no place other than Mount Moriah.  Indeed, from history we know that Solomon's Temple was built in that spot, then later the Temple that was rebuilt after the Exile stood there.  Now the Dome of the Rock, that beautiful Muslim mosque, stands in that place; and within it is a large slab of rock that is, it is claimed, the very rock on which Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son.  I have been in that mosque and have seen that huge stone; but whether or not it was there when Abraham was, I'm not sure.  I do know, however, that the location of Mount Moriah has not changed; and when I stood with my barefoot (a Muslim policy in holy places) feet in that location, I was standing on a monumental piece of the history of my faith.

Little did I know, however, that one day, my own daughter would carry that name.  :)

Besides appreciating the spiritual significance of the meaning of Moriah, I like the name simply because of the way it sounds!  Even now, I find myself sometimes repeating her name aloud, just to savor the sound of it.  It is so beautiful in my ears--and in my eyes.  Seeing it written out reminds me that this dream of having a daughter has come true.  It is real!  She is here!  God gave us our Moriah!

A little while (a few weeks perhaps?) before our girl was born, our dear friend Valerie emailed and asked if I would please let her in on the secret of what her name would be.  She wasn't asking out of idle curiosity ;-), but because she wanted to make a name sign for her.  I was delighted to share the information with her and even more delighted to receive a special package in the mail from Valerie, containing this wonderful gift:

Thank you, Valerie, so very much for blessing us with this!  I love it!!!  :)

Another place I get to regularly see Moriah's name here in our home is in our laundry room.  Maybe you remember when I was showing pictures of my new system of organization in that room?  At the time, I turned Moriah's bin around so her name wasn't visible because I wasn't ready to let that cat out of the bag yet.  ;-)  But now I can show you...

...and can admit that I get sort of giddy sometimes when I see this.  :)

Yesterday when I was running some errands with Moriah and David, I was standing in the checkout line at Target, and the cashier asked me her name.  When I told her what it was, she said the obligatory, "Oh, that's pretty," or something like that.  But the girl behind me in line piped up and asked, "How do you spell that?"  I was glad to tell her (actually, I'm always glad to spell it because I do NOT want people to think it's Mariah..."oh, like Mariah Carey!" they say...no, no, NO!)  ;-).  Then she said, "That's my sister's name!"  She wondered why we had chosen that name, so I briefly told her about Jeff and I meeting in Israel, and the significance of that place.  She confessed that she had no idea why her parents had named her sister after a mountain in Israel!  Maybe their reasons were similar to ours.  :)

In the past when we've had a new baby, it has sometimes taken a little while for it to feel natural to call that baby by name.  At first, I found it easier to say, for example, "I need to feed the baby," rather than, "I need to feed Shav," or "Would you like to hold the baby?", rather than, "Would you like to hold Tobin?", etc.  But this time, with Moriah, it's been very easy to get accustomed to calling her by name.  She's felt like a real person with her own name for so long that it wasn't hard to make that transition.  Of course she's Moriah.

She could never have been anything else!  :)