Micah and I struggled to name this beautiful second daughter of ours, even though we’ve kept a long running list of potential baby names for both girls and boys for quite a few years now. Zianne was always at the top of that list, but we have quite a few other girl names on it that I thought we loved too. Micah and I agree on lots of names and I’ve always said we could easily name at least ten babies together.
By the 24th week of pregnancy, we had a hunch we were having a girl due to the presence of a cyst in the baby’s pelvis. The cyst later disappeared so we didn’t let the doctors give us any details, but our elementary scientific reasoning told us it was probably an ovarian cyst and therefore the pressure was on to name a second daughter. And suddenly we felt stuck. Or rather, Micah felt stuck. I was happy to choose from many of the names on our list, but he suddenly found himself comparing each name to Zianne and it fell short in his eyes. I understand his point… it’s hard to give a child your “second favorite” name.
Talitha was never on our official list, and I never mentioned it to Micah until halfway through this pregnancy when he vetoed every name from our girl list. I actually stumbled upon the name Talitha back when I was pregnant with Zianne. About a month before she was born, I read Mark 5 where Jesus raises Jairus’ daughter from the dead. He says to her “Talitha cumi” which means “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” I thought to myself “Talitha would be a pretty name for a girl.” However, at the time we were set with Zianne as our girl name and I never uttered Talitha to Micah. In fact, I hardly thought of it again until just a few months ago.
With the impending arrival of another baby and no girl name at all, I mentioned the name Talitha to Micah one day. I watched him ponder it. This was the first name I had suggested that didn’t receive a hasty “no.” He told me he liked it. He wasn’t certain about it, but it was pretty and he appreciated the Biblical meaning behind it. As we talked about the name Talitha over the next few weeks, Micah came up with one stipulation. If we were going to give our child another “weird name,” she had to have a really “normal” middle name to go with it. We threw around some ideas such as Ruth or June, but finally settled on Joy. Joy is a family name on Micah’s side. It’s the middle name of both his grandma and his sister Kayla, who has lived with us for the past three years. Kayla is such a special part of our family and she is leaving in just a few days to serve on an 11 month mission trip around the world. We are so sad to see her go, although we are excited for her trip and the ways God will use her this next year. She is truly a woman filled with joy and such a loving aunt to Zianne. We would love for our both our daughters to follow her example in the way she loves and serves others with her whole heart. {Plus, we are secretly hoping if we name our offspring after her, Kayla will come live with us again after her trip is over.}
Our prayer is that Talitha Joy will be a girl, and someday a woman, who arises with joy each day. We hope she loves others well and serves God’s kingdom sacrificially. May she be a shining example to others as she clings to the hope of Christ in all circumstances.
