Emma Ruth

Growing up I had a list- a list of names that I wanted to name my children one day. I was thinking 5 was a good number, a mix of boys and girls. My names were highly flowery in nature- more from an earlier generation and not necessarily names that were popular at the time. Some were names that came from books that had inspired me through the years. For example I was determined to have a little girl with the middle name of Anne- Anne with an ‘e’ that is just so I could make a connection to the beloved classic- Anne of Green Gables.

So when it came time for Ben and I to talk through baby names I have to confess that had more than one option to consider. In my heart of hearts from the beginning of our pregnancy our baby was a girl so I naturally migrated towards girl names. One name that came up in our discussion was Emma. You see while Ben and I were dating I had a day dream of sorts that included a little girl named Emma- wasn’t sure why at the time so I wrote it down and put it on the back burner for the time being (if I remember correctly this was during our annual insurance meeting- something about maternity packages got my brain to start dreaming :).

Emma- why did this name keep coming up? The more we talked about this name the more I liked it and as soon as the gender was confirmed I started calling our little one Emma. Now for a middle name… my first thought was Emma Leigh. I thought it would be fun to reclaim my old middle name somehow, but when you said the two names together it sounded a bit funny- more like Emily than two separate names. Towards the end of our summer home the name Ruth came to my mind, but I didn’t vocalize it. On a drive to pick up dinner Ben threw out the name Ruth. I couldn’t believe it- we had both separately thought of the same name. Perhaps this was the one? But still we decided to play around with options a bit. After all our ultrasound that said girl was quite early. What if we were having a boy?

So we put the naming of our child aside until we were able to 100% confirm that we were indeed having a daughter. Then we felt like we could move forward with officially naming our little girl. As I started thinking through the significance of these names- Emma and Ruth several things came to mind.

Emma…

Emma was the name of Ben’s great-grandmother. Her engagement diamond is part of my engagement ring. She was a teacher and helped support her granddaughter through college (Ben’s Mom). Since Ben and I have been together I have heard many a story of this women and her faith.

Ruth…

During high school and college a book that I turned to many times was ‘Lady in Waiting’. It was a book that used the story of Ruth to share the importance of God’s timing and provision. In China I actually found copies of this book in Chinese and was able to share it with my Chinese friends. On another note, after our miscarriage the fall of 2013 Ben and I missed several Sunday mornings at fellowship. During that time we both went through an online study of Ruth. It was a healing time for myself as we worked through all that had taken place in only a few months after being married. The story of Ruth for as long as I can remember has held a special place in my life.

Our daughter will not carry the name of the famous heroine in Anne of Green Gables, nor will she carry one of the antique names that I penned as a young girl, but her name will hold special meaning to us both as her name didn’t come over night, but rather through the years.