And They Were Called...

"For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well.  My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.  Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them." Psalm 139:13-16 (emphasis mine)

As I sit here, thinking of how God led us to the names of these precious babies, I am in awe that He is concerned with every detail of our lives. He is a great God who designed and wrote our stories before the foundations of the world, yet He cares for us in each moment of each day.

I have wrestled whether or not to share the names that the twins' biological family gave to each of them, and have decided against it, as to keep their identity hidden until they officially become Neelys. We want you to know that we kept these names and they will come first. Therefore, the names the Lord led us to give them will be their middle names, officially, but they will likely be called by them.

When we found out we were matched with twins, a boy and a girl, we were overjoyed and shocked and super excited! Honestly, it wasn't for a few days until we really started discussing/praying about names for them. We didn't know their names, nor did we have pictures, and that was reason enough for us to wait.  However, once we saw them and learned their names, we began talking among the three of us, throwing out different names we all liked.  In some ways, this is a great way to "narrow down a list.." find out which names the other parent (and kid, to a degree) doesn't like and they get crossed off. I was hoping this would lead us to a small list of boy names and girl names that we each liked and could begin praying about. Well, our list of boy names had 6 or 7 names on it, but our list of girl names had 1 name. Haha. Clearly, this time we agreed on many more boy names than girl names!

For the next few days, we thought about them and prayed about them. Had our 3 year old daughter been a boy, Nathan and I both agreed he would be named "Josiah." We've always loved that name because of who Josiah was. However, neither of us felt Josiah was the appropriate name for this little boy. We were shocked a bit after having talked about this name through the years, but I thought that it was pretty neat that we felt the same way.

In further discussing, we found we both really liked the name Judah for our son. So, I began praying that God would lead us to scripture or meaning for Judah that would speak to our heart something about Him and this precious boy. It took a few days, but during a Scripture reading at church, Isaiah 40 was read and one specific verse jumped out at me. Verse 9 says, "O Zion, You who bring good tidings, Get up into the high mountain; O Jerusalem, You who bring good tidings, Lift up your voice with strength, Lift it up, be not afraid; Say to the cities of Judah, 'Behold your God!'" My heart leaped as my prayer for this little boy is that one day, he will passionately follow God and will return to his "city" and say to them, "Behold your God!" Oh how I long for the people of Guinea Bissau to know Him and walk in His ways. This verse was precious to me, and a great conformation of the name God was to have us name him: Judah.

As for our daughter, we all three liked one certain name. However, after some thought and prayer, it didn't quite "settle" right, so I began praying specifically for God to lead us in another direction. A few days went by and still no direction.  Then, we got an email from the missionary at the orphanage asking for the names that we would like on their birth certificates. I panic-ed *a little* and told Nathan right away. We both were searching the internet (him at work, me at home) for girl names in hopes that something would stick out to us.

That morning during breakfast, I read Psalm 40. Verse 8 jumped out to me; it says, "I delight to do Your will, O my God, And Your law is within my heart." I prayed this for her and noticed the word, delight. I wondered if there was a pretty girls name meaning "delight." I did, yet another, internet search. Nothing jumped out at me.  SO... alas, I typed in, once again, "biblical girl names." I scrolled alphabetically through all these names for awhile and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw "meaning: delight." I looked next to it and the name written was Jewel. Precious. Next to me was my bible. I quickly turned to the concordance and found "jewel." There were two references. One was Malachi 3:17. It reads, "They shall be Mine, says the Lord of hosts, on the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him." "Jewels," here, literally means "special treasure."  Precious, once again. It was very clear to me in that moment.. her name will be, Jewel. This verse just grabs deep down in my bones every time I read it.. there is so much there. God is talking about His people. I pray that Jewel will be His. That she will know Him. She is a special treasure and delight. God saved her life and placed her in this orphanage. There is even more that has been confirmed to me (that I may get to share on this blog one day) concerning this verse and her situation. God is good. He led us and we are grateful.

What is funny to me is that their names both start with "J" and actually sound a bit similar. We had no necessary intentions of this, God just led.  I think it's pretty neat.

Judah and Jewel.

Please join us in praying for them, by name.

As always, thank you for loving us.

In Him,

Kimberly