I thought it would be fun to share the story of Olive's name.
I think names are very important. It's the thing that will be spoken over us more than anything else. When it came time to decide a name for our little girl, it was not something we took lightly.
We actually had a definite boys name picked and 3 girl names. We thought that if our first was a girl, her name would be Miel, or Honey in Spanish. From the moment we found out we were having a girl I kept thinking her name was Olive.
I don't know where the idea for the name Olive came from. If I heard it, it maybe just came from Olive Oyl, honestly. I didn't find out about all of the celebrity babies named Olive until recently.
I imagined Olive to be a lot like me. Creative but also outspoken. I imagined she would like the color purple just like her mom and grandma.
Early in my pregnancy I was told I miscarried after going to the hospital for bleeding. For a week and 2 days I didn't know if I was carrying a child or not. I knew that our baby was still there and I told God "this child is yours. We will love her and raise her, but she belongs to you. Whatever you have for her life we will not stand in the way." Sure enough, after what seemed like forever, an ultrasound showed a tiny little heartbeat of one of the greatest fighters I know.
When my water broke, I was terrified. I had been given 72 hours before she would arrive or I would get an infection. There was a small hope she would replenish her fluid. I was praying and God gave me a vision of her. I was reminded of the story of Jonah and the whale. Mahesh Chavda once explained what whale vomit is, ambergris, a very expensive perfume additive. I had this vision of her floating in a white cloud with gold flecks, which is exactly what ambergris looks like. He very gently told me "don't worry about how she will get here, she will get here."
One night Matt asked me who I thought was in "there". I said "I think it's Olive." He agreed. So I began thinking of middle names. Elizabeth is a favorite name of my mother's, and while we thought of many names, Elizabeth just flowed. So I looked it up. One meaning I found was "consecrated to God". Perfect.
Olive means peace usually when you look it up because of the Olive branch- however I also relate it to the story of the ark. Of all things to dove chose an Olive branch to show there was LIFE outside of what/who was on the boat. It brought hope that God kept his promise.
I later looked up other names that meant "peace" and on this particular list, Jonah was listed. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt our little girls life has a huge purpose in this world.
I love the name Olive Elizabeth, but I really feel God had this name picked for her before we ever knew of her.
So there's the story of her name :)
