Introducing Baby Eve Nienna

We are so blessed to have another baby girl in our family.  Eve Nienna was born at 7:02pm on Thursday, October 9 after a super easy labor and delivery at Valley Birth Place.  She weighed 6lbs 14oz and was 19 inches long.

an hour after birth

She is such a sweet baby and her sisters all love her

On her first walk - 4 days old

1 Week Old

When we name our babies, we have tried to make each name a sort of blessing - an act of dedication from the start.  Our other girls are named in honor of our mothers and each of their full names have the similar meaning of "a light consecrated to God". Eve's full name means "living tear-gift". I'll explain the obscure choice of a middle name first.

Nienna is a fictional character in J.R.R. Tolkien's mythology. When I was terribly sick with first trimester nausea, Mark started reading to me from "The Simarillion".When he read the short passage about Nienna, I was struck by the description of her character:

"She dwells alone. She is acquainted with grief, and mourns for every wound that Arda [Earth] has suffered in the marring of Melkor [Satan]. So great was her sorrow, as the music unfolded, that her song turned to lamentation long before its end, and the sound of mourning was woven into the themes of the World before it began. But she does not weep for herself; and those who hearken to her learn pity, and endurance in hope. Her halls are west of West, upon the borders of the world; and she comes seldom to the city of Valimar where all is glad. She goes rather to the halls of Mandos, which are near to her own; and all those who wait in Mandos cry to her, for she brings strength to the spirit and turns sorrow to wisdom. " - The Simarillion, Chapter 2, "Valaquenta"

I wish for a life filled with joy for each of our girls.  But I know they will face many trials and hardships which will at times probably seem unbearable.  This description of Tolkien's character Nienna hit a nerve with me because I want to equip our daughters to face this life, both its joys and deep hurts, with courage and peace.  I want them to choose to seek out others who are lost and lonely and hurting - to stand in the dark spaces with them and to offer comfort and hope.

A few days after reading the passage about Nienna, I came across an article called "Comforting Eve". As soon as I finished reading it I knew what I wanted our baby's name to be. Here is the bulk of the article:

"Among the women we honor in the Bible, Eve is not considered often enough, either for the weight of her afflictions or for the means by which God comforts her. Eve's story is one of the most broken stories in the Bible. She comes into the world in innocence. Lovely and loveable, she is formed to bless and please the man from whose side she was taken. Yet she is left physically and spiritually unprotected in the garden by her husband, who then blames her for his faults. She experiences the most violent rupture of human history - the fall. Having once basked in the light of innocence, she now withdraws into the darkness of sin, shame, and loneliness. Eve is the beginning of a long line of broken-hearted women.

In the midst of this, God promises a climactic redemption. He promises that she will bear children, and that from her will come a son who will consummately destroy that dreaded, deceptive serpent. This son will obey all that was disobeyed. This son will succeed where Eve's husband failed, and will once and for all remove her earthly garments of shame and replace them with heavenly garments of righteousness. Eve looks forward to a climactic event of rescue, redemption, and reconciliation. She then conceives children in hope. What went through her mind as she bore Cain in her womb and bore hope in her heart?

Eve bears two sons, but neither is the son she was promised. In fact, one will kill the other. What woman could endure this? A failed husband, her own failures, and now in the dawning hours of hope, her older son murders the younger, and thereby prolongs her darkness. The enmity begins - two kingdoms, two cities, and the first visible death. Both in her lifetime, both from her womb. Is it too much to call Eve the mother of the broken-hearted?

What could possible comfort her and reunite her with her younger son? What could reverse the curse upon her family? What could turn these long nights of sadness into an eternal day of gladness? And for Eve's daughters and sons, what can truly comfort us when the dearest things in this life are taken?  When the sufferings of life seem to be more than we can endure? When this world, or our family, or perhaps even our spiritual family hurts us with wounds too deep for words?

It is here that we must admit that trite cliches of good intentions barely comfort us at all. Some wounds are simply too deep for earthly consolation. We must, by faith, join Eve and the choir of the broken-hearted, who often sing their songs of praise through a veil of tears. We must learn, with Eve, to long for the coming Son who is better than Adam and Abel, and to rest in His word of promise. He has come and is yet coming again, and through His Spirit we are assured of our eternal consolation.

But we must remember that even when He came into this world, it offered Him no bed of roses but rather a crown of thorns, and that we bear our crosses united to Him in a bond that cannot be broken. We must learn to find our truest comfort in the same place Christ did - in heaven. ...Wounds heal, but scars remain. Eve saw flowers and rainbows and even had other children, but she would never forget what she lost in this age or what she awaited in the age to come. ... What could truly comfort Eve - and us? ... It is the consummate coming of Christ and His glorious kingdom, and the foretaste of that kingdom that we have now through His Word and Spirit. " " - from "Comforting Eve" by Eric B. Watkins, Tabletalk Magazine "The Millennium" December 2013