A Baby Blessingway

a virtual celebration for our friend, reverendmother, and the much anticipated reverendbaby

Thursday, December 01, 2005

what's in a name?

from one mother to another mother,
from sister to sister, and friend to friend,
this is for you Reverend Mother to bless you today, and for days to come.

Have you ever made a quilt? I haven’t. I don’t have the skill or the patience to be honest. But the whole concept of being part of a quilting bee fascinates me

For me RevGalsBlogring has been a 21st century quilting bee!

Imagine we are making a quilt, you and I and the other Rev Gals. We’re sitting side by side, sometimes silent, sometimes chatting, but we are all at peace. The work we are doing is important, but the relationship between us is even more so. And as we stitch away like dozens of busy bees, the conversations and the laughter and tears we share are as important as the stitches that hold the quilt together, because they are our story.

On the quilt we find the names we suggested for Rev Baby way back in August– the outlandish and the beautiful: Camille, Elspeth, Charlotte, Meredith and Evangeline. Even though we went through lists of authors and heroines in literature no one came up with Desdemona – Shakespeare’s tragic heroine in Othello … mmm … I wonder why not!

St Casserole summed it all up when she said
“Naming a child is such a treat.”
And so as my prayer for your daughter has been that she will grow up filled with God’s wisdom and discernment – Sophie remains my name of choice for her. May she be blessed abundantly, whatever her name finally turns out to be. These last few weeks are the time to put your feet us as much as you can. Your daughter will be born very soon, and you are about to make the transition from a family of three, to a family of four. This time of waiting gives you the opportunity too to find the right name for your newest precious addition to your family, and we eagerly await that news!

I wonder if you know that in Finland babies are usually nameless for the first few weeks! It’s a strong tradition not to reveal a baby’s name until their baptism. Some parents take this to the extreme and like the mute Zechariah (Luke 1:63) will not even voice the baby’s name. Instead they hand a piece of paper (we’ve moved on from tablets and chalk!) to the priest in the church at the appropriate time. As a pastor-to-be I have a Mr Bean clip playing in my mind where I end up baptising a baby Roast Beef because I’m given the wrong piece of paper!

When it came to choosing names for our own children, hubby and I had the additional challenge of choosing a name that worked well in both English and in Finnish. Imagine if we’d chosen the popular Finnish name Pekka for our son! And Finns don’t have the J sound (it’s pronounced like a Y) so my dad’s name Jack, becomes yak! Lovely not !

We finally chose the name Oliver.
A few weeks before our son was born however, Disney released the film Oliver & Company so we had to go to see it, and make sure that the Oliver there wasn’t an awful character, the ridicule of everyone’s jokes. Luckily he turned out to be the most adorable kitten, and we could live with that :)

Girl’s names are so much more international and therefore finding a name for our daughter was much easier, though choosing the right name, again quite problematic. The name we finally decided on was Ilona which means happy one. One thing we didn’t take into account though was our daughter’s desire to have a middle name, and so this year we officially changed her name to Ilona-Elizabeth, her choice and a name that has been on both sides of my family for generations.

RM whatever name you choose for RevBaby you can be sure she is precious in God's sight, as well as yours.

Be blessed. :)

Father God,
I ask for abundant blessings on Rev Mother during the last few weeks, days and hours of this pregnancy. Let her find Your rest in the midst of all the bustle around her, and I ask that you reveal to her Your secrets about the character of this little woman of God she is privileged to be preparing to give birth too. You Father know both mother and child intimately and by name and I ask they both feel safe as they are held in Your arms.

I thank you too that we Rev Gals and friends of Rev Mother’s can be part of her blessing way, stand around her praying for Your protection and Love to carry her through labour and beyond.
Amen

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