Ahaviah Zahorah

Ahaviah Zahorah arrived at home on 28 September 2012.  Ahaviah means “the love of the LORD” or “the LORD loves.”  Zahorah means “to shine” or “to illuminate” or “brightness” or “light.”  Our LORD’s love shines brightly and illuminates the darkness.  We pray that this love of the LORD will fill our Ahaviah with its light and that she truly be a daughter of the light which the darkness cannot conquer.  Then this same love will also shine out through her to others.

As is our custom, we’ve also given her a nickname, Zemirah.  (Of course all these names are Hebrew … we’ve got to do something, after all, with that expensive seminary education.)  There are two different words (homophones) in Hebrew spelled “Zemirah.”  The first means “song” or “melody” and therefore also “praise.”  The second means “strength.”  Thus our blessing to our daughter is that her life will be a song and melody of praise that rises up to the Father in response to his perfecting love.  But we also recognize that the love of God is the only sure source of strength, and so we pray that it will always be Ahaviah’s foundation.

(In case you’ve forgotten or never known, these are the nicknames for our other children:
Alitzah is Tzitzah
Hannah Gail is Shoshannah
Eliana is Tzahala & also Ailona
Zerachiah is Shomer.
Have you ever wondered why we named our other children as we did?)

Oh, and for those of you who will want to know:
She arrived at around 5:38 pm and weighed in at 3.5 kg (7 lbs 11.2 oz) and measured 55 cm long (21.65 in).  And of course, she is beautiful.  Her father delivered her, as she was in hurry and the midwife was still on the way.  (Well, at any rate, her father caught her … like Eliana, she seemed just to have been delivered by God.)

grace and peace,
joshua & ruth,
alitzah, hannah gail, eliana, zerachiah, ahaviah