When His Plan Trumps Yours

When Ryan and I were in our early stages of dating, he invited me to a wedding where he was a Groomsmen. Luckily for me, he thought I was groovy enough to also attend the rehearsal dinner the night before. We were placed at a table with the flower girl. She was cute as a button with her long blonde, curly locks and spunky personality. Her name was Georgia.

Her charm, that name, stayed with us and we always “knew” we’d name our first daughter Georgia. After the blessing from my aunt (my dad’s oldest sister who had a baby girl named “Georgia Josephine” many, many years ago and passed away early on), we’d call her Georgia Josephine because Josephine was the name of my grandmother.

This was all but set in stone for Ryan and I.

I stared at her almost all night that first night. At one point, around 3am, when both she and Ryan were sleeping, I told myself, “There is no way she could be anything but a Georgia Josephine.” Until about 4am hit, and I realized that she was not a Georgia Josephine. When I wrote it out the next day, I think those feelings are what provoked me to write:

She is nothing of what I was planning, expecting and had seen in visions.

And yet, she was more than anything in my, in our, wildest dreams. She would be named something that was all her.

That Saturday morning (just two days later), I was changing her. Ryan was downstairs. I had yelled to him (probably because I had a blowout all over my hands or something awesomely gross like that), “Can you please come up here?”

“Yes, I’ll be right up,” he said.

{Insert a one-minute wait, probably no more than that.}

As soon as he came up, he said,

Hey, what do you think about the name Samarah? Ever heard of it? When you called my name, I headed upstairs. I turned around because I wanted to Google a specific name search. In that one search, the name Samarah popped up.

I said, “Love it. And actually, I think I’ve heard it somewhere in the Bible.” 

We immediately looked it up. I was right. Samarah (pronounced: sah-mah-rah) is a biblical name meaning:

 Protected by God.

I squealed. Like a little piggy. I told Ryan I’d email our Pastor immediately for more information. Because our Pastor rocks (I’ll never stop telling you that), he responded,

I think it must be a variation of the city named Samaria, from which the people Samaritans are named. It was the capital city of the Northern Kingdom, which broke away from David’s dynasty (actually, from his grandson, the king Rehoboam). Samaria means “mountain of watching”. I’m thinking that’s the source of the derivation for “protected by God.” 

We knew almost instantly that a Samarah she was, a Samarah she would be and a Samarah she was born to be. (We added the “H” because I’m a Sarah and not Sara. Ah. Technicalities.)

Samarah Josephina.

We gave her a version of Josephine because “Jo” has a four-fold blessing and meaning to us and for Samarah. Not only was Josephine my Grandmother’s name but it was also Ryan’s mother’s grandmother’s name (did ya get that all?!). It is also my cousin’s daughter, Emma’s middle name (after Grandma Jo) and Ryan’s sister, Kelly also has middle name “Jo” (and for those of you who don’t know Kelly, she is adopted and probably one of the best people you might ever meet in life, with a huge passion and soft spot for babies and children).

We love her full name, Samarah Josephina and we call her that a lot. We also call her her, “Sam,” and “Mara Jo.” You can call her whatever you’d like, and we will let her decide what she wants to be called when she is old enough to tell us!

While I love Little Legume, she simply is the most perfect Samarah Josephina.

There is nothing – NOTHING – about this child that doesn’t scream, “Protected by God.” You don’t know her story, and we will never tell her story unless it’s a story she wants to tell, but from the moment of her conception she has been protected in ways that have made me a believer 100 times over. Every single day, in every single way, she has been protected. We are certain that God populated her name in Ryan’s Google search that day (yeah, Google, you’re not smarter than God 🙂 ) for a very specific reason:

His plans trumped ours.

No, she’s not Georgia Josephine.

She’s Samarah Josphina, protected by God – given to us to protect- and our hearts are filled with love, peace, joy and grace.

See you soon, Minnesota!

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Xox,
SKH