Moriah Grace: What's in a name?

A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favor rather than silver or gold. 
Proverbs 22:1
❤

I always love hearing the stories behind why someone's name was chosen so I thought I'd share how we decided upon our precious girl's name. :)

I've always had several boy names picked out which each pregnancy, some of which have remained on the list with all 3 kids and others that got vetoed when we would find out we were pregnant again. But I've never had any girl names picked out for some reason. Girl names are hard for me. I think having a unique name myself has influenced my opinion about girl names...I like unusual names but not so unusual that no one would be able to pronounce it or spell it (ahem, thanks mom ;) I wanted a name that was meaningful and a name that when someone said it, made you picture someone who was pretty and sweet. I know, a tall order for a name right? All of that and I had to get my picky husband to agree with me... you see my dilemma? ;)
 

I don't know if you remember but back in April I blogged about how TJ had been laid off and he was unemployed from December of last year until the end of March and well, those times were tough. Those months were so trying. At the same time that TJ found out his company was making cuts we had just recently found out we were expecting our 3rd child, we had just moved from our duplex to a house and Christmas was soon and coming.

One morning while I was praying I was reminded of the story of Abraham & Isaac in the Bible (the book of Genesis) where Abraham's faith was tested on Mt. Moriah and God ended up providing for him in the very moment Abraham needed it.

The lesson in this story really resonated with me (even moreso since I've become a mother & have to imagine myself being put in Abraham's situation)- that I need to have faith and God will provide for us. It really hit me, I needed to stop worrying and fully rely on the Lord to provide. I shared this with TJ and we both decided that Moriah would be the baby's name. She still needed a middle name though.



The first thing that came to me was my mom's name, Catherine, because my mom means the world to me. She really is my hero and has been since I was a little girl- she handles life's struggles with so much grace and dignity and ALWAYS shows tremendous faith no matter what obstacles face her. She's hands down the funniest most adventurous person I know, ridiculously generous & just plain selfless. I couldn't imagine a better person to name my daughter after. Welllll, I told my mom my plan and she shot me down. Told me she didn't want me to name her after her and that Catherine was just a "meh" sort of name. 
(Have I mentioned that my mom is also just a liiiittle stubborn? WELL SHE IS.)

Okey dokey then. Back to the drawing board, ha!

After talking with TJ again we came up with both the names Grace & Faith. We liked them both and were having trouble deciding which one we should use. I decided to look up both of their meanings in the Bible to see if this would give us some clarification. 

I had always heard that grace was an "unmerited favor", but my Bible put it another way. It said that grace was an "undeserved gift." It got me thinking about babies and gifts. And not just any baby- the daughter I had always hoped I would have someday, a sweet baby girl. An undeserved gift? Yes indeed. 
So Moriah Grace it was.

Now that she's here it rings even more true- we honestly can't think of a better gift we'd rather have ♥