Naming Our Daughter....

We're at a place in our adoption where we feel that it is important to name our daughter.  This choice is not because we feel that it's just something 'cute' to do or because we're bored.....goodness gracious....we've got LOTS to keep us busy these days!  We feel it's important because as we fight, save, and raise funds to bring our daughter into her forever family, we need to remind others and ourselves that she is not just another statistic.  She is a child with a heart beat, future, and something amazing to bring to the kingdom of God.  Every single child within the 147 million orphans worldwide has a face and potential.  I remember at one point back in 1979 when my birth mother died, I became a part of the orphan count but because I had a name and a face, my birth father's family took me into their home and claimed me forever as their own daughter.  I need to do the same thing for my daughter.

So without further ado, here's introducing our daughter's name....

How do you pronounce it?

SAY-LAH
I'm continuing to do the research to make sure this is correct in its original translation so if you have any great resources, please point me that way

Why Selah?

Biblically speaking, Selah is often translated to mean in the Psalms as 'to pause'.  It's also been considered to  indicate an instruction to the reader to stop and consider carefully what has been said. In effect, it's a reinforcer: reflect on the above, because it's important.

This is so important for the way that Selah has come into our lives.  As I've shared before, we were living a pretty comfortable life with our 2 boys who are old enough to take care of a lot of their own needs.  Besides helping out our friends and family when they were in a pinch, we in many ways lived in our own little middle-class bubble.  Don't get me wrong, we loved people but served people in the way that Jesus speaks of......I'm not so sure.  Not that helping people locally isn't significant and necessary, but it was almost as if God needed us to pause and reflect on our comfortable life to see that there is a  world beyond the one that we knew that is in dire need of hope.  It was like a STOP MICHELLE JUST FOR A MINUTE!  Come see what I see. See what breaks my heart and let me break yours for what breaks mine.

I look forward to people asking me and Selah how she got her name because it's an invited opportunity to share about God's radical love for each one of us.

So, yep!  That's my baby girl.  (In case you were wondering, her middle name will more than likely be one of her given names provided by whomever in Ethiopia named her.)

Mommy loves you, Selah!