Baby Girl Has A Name

If there’s one thing that can definitely be said about Stephen & I as parents, it’s that we’re very intentional namers. As you can read in this blog post Stephen wrote after Jonathan was born, we spent a lot of time getting into the meaning of his name (Jehovah has given/ gift from God) and what traits we hoped our son would share with his Biblical namesake. If you’ve spent more than 5 seconds with Jonathan, you know that our son loves every person on this earth and is ready to befriend every single one of them at a moment’s notice. We continue to pray that as his extroverted gregariousness will develop over the course of his life, that he would use it for the good of those he is in relationship with.

One thing Stephen mentioned in his blog post is this: “Since Amanda and I decided to find out only if our baby was human or not we knew that we had to eventually come up with two names, ideally before the baby was born. With only a month or so left we were driving home and the topic of names came up. We shared our short-lists and began whittling down the finalists. We agreed on our girl name almost immediately.”

And though that was 4.5 years ago, we still haven’t found a girl name that we like as much as Abigail. 

From various internet sources, the name Abigail is of Hebrew origin. Meanings include: my Father rejoices, gives joy, my/the/her Father’s joy, my Father is joyful, fountain of joy, joy of the Father, cause of joy.

As you know from the long wait to get her, the mere existence of our sweet girl is a reason for joy and a testament to the faithfulness of God. She is the product of years of prayer from ourselves and our village and getting to give all glory to God for our little miracle is certainly a cause for joy. As for her earthly father, I have a feeling she’ll have Stephen wrapped around her little finger and be his pride and joy for the rest of her life.

From a Biblical standpoint, the story of Abigail can be found in 1 Samuel 25. I honestly had kind of forgotten the story of Abigail, but when we were making name lists for Baby Rabon #1, a friend from high school wrote a blog about Abigail. I encourage you to read it, here. Attributes of Abigail that come alive in the story are that she is not only beautiful (which face it, we make cute kids so our baby girl will be), but she is smart and she loves the Lord. She is wise (an interesting note I found here is that “Abigail is described as having “good (tov) understanding (se.khel)” in 1 Samuel 25:3.  Solomon is described with the same Hebrew word (se.khel) in 2 Chronicles 2:12,” which puts her in pretty impressive company!). She trusts in God’s provision and is willing to step out in faith & courage to do what she believes is right. She is brave – she did the right thing knowing there would be consequences. Though wealthy, Biblical Abigail described herself as a servant, and humbled herself to wash the feet of David’s servants. David describes her as having good judgement. We pray that like her Biblical namesake, our daughter will boldly face any problem with the confidence that God will see her through it. We hope she will fight for what is worth fighting for and know Who is in her corner. We want her to be humble, have good judgement, and serve others.

This short study on Abigail lists the following about her:

1. She was respected.
2. She was able to soothe anger.
3. She had great faith in God.
4. She was assertive and decisive.
5. She cared for the safety of her household.
6. She was humble and meek.
7. She was a blessing to everyone she contacted. 
8. She was a gracious and hospitable hostess.

It says this later, “One factor was responsible for Abigail’s beauty– faith! Her meekness and generosity, concern and sympathy, grace and charm all sprang from her faith in God (25:26-31).

(Excuse his grumpy face at the beginning, I must have denied him something he absolutely needed, like orange Tic Tacs or a sixth piece of gum to chew for two minutes and throw away 😉  — There’s just something SO CUTE about the way he says “Abigail” that I just love!)

We pray that our little girl will have some or all of these qualities – if she’s anything like her brother with his Biblical namesake, she’ll get them in spades!

For a middle name, we knew we wanted to have something meaningful to our family. Jonathan’s middle name is Michael, which is also Stephen’s middle name and Jonathan’s paternal grandfather’s name.

For Baby Rabon #2,  we wanted to choose a name that connected to my side of the family. We decided to find out the gender, largely because we know that this could be our last baby due to how difficult it has been to grow our family. That would help determine the right familial connection for the middle name.

Luckily for me, I happen to have parents who have names that are easily combined into a beautiful middle name for our baby girl: Chris + Tina.

Christina: the latin feminine form of Christian, meaning Follower of Christ.

As Christian parents, the most important thing that we will ever do for our children is to train them up to know, love, serve and follow Christ. The greatest legacy that our parents and grandparents have put in place for us is that they have set us on a path to know Him, and we hope to be able to continue this from generation to generation. We hope that she will learn that her identity and value is in Him alone, and that the things of this world that could define her simply don’t.

Getting to name our little one after both of my parents means so much to me. These two are the most incredible people. Everything that I am is because of them.

Despite living in different states since I was 9 years old, my relationship with my Dad has never been “long distance.” My Daddy was there for every triumph and every trial in my life, made it to every birthday, graduation and Father-Daughter dance. He was always just a phone call away and I know that to this day if I ever need my Daddy that he would be on the next flight or already in his truck driving to come to the rescue. There is no one I’d rather have in my corner when things are rough than my Dad. He’s the most family oriented person that I know and would give the shirt off his back for any of us.

I could not have been blessed with a more wonderful example of love, forgiveness, compassion and what a Godly woman is than my Mom. She has always been my biggest fan, even when I make bad choices, and has always lifted me higher when I made good ones. She’s one of my best friends and always gives the best advice. I don’t know where I would be if I didn’t have this amazing woman in my life and I’m so grateful that I will never know. My mom is truly exceptional in every way and I continue to learn how to be the best person I can be by following her example.

My parents have been divorced for the majority of my life, but have wrapped our family in so much love that our lives are no worse for it. They still genuinely love and care for each other, and that overflows to their children and grandchildren. They’ve never once wavered in their commitment to co-parenting (and co-grandparenting) their children, giving us a firm foundation from which to grow and flourish. I’ve never doubted that I could do absolutely anything I set my mind to because they’d be there to guide, encourage and support me through it.

Another fun aspect to giving her this middle name is that it connects to my brother (Christopher) and my Gram (Christine) too. Why not go for a 4th generation with “Chris” in the name?

Abigail Christina Rabon, we love you so much already!