Little Lady of the Sea

Marin’s name came to me unassumingly. I heard it in a movie when I was in college, and thought it sounded lovely. It made a big enough impression that I ended up looking its meaning the same day I heard it.  I didn’t have a reason to be looking up name meanings, except for the fact that I’m simply a lover of names that tell a story.  There it was…”of the sea; sailor.” I’m not going to lie; it kind of made my heart flutter a bit.  The beach, ocean, waves have always been a “home” for me.  Countless times, the ebb and flow of the ocean has lulled me into remembering I’m a part of something greater, belonging to something. I packed the name away in that ‘someday’ place and only thought of it on occasion, once mentioned to my mom that I loved how much it sounded like a mix of her name, Mary, and mine.  I liked the idea that if a little one came to be, this name could be a tribute to her. But other than that, the name stayed tucked away until years down the road when Andy and I were considering having a baby.  

He immediately loved the sweet little name I had dreamed about.  He even reminded me how we were standing on the shore when we told each other that we had found the ONE we were meant for. Our shuttling between baby names kept bringing us back to further significance of little Marin 'of the sea'. We spoke about Peter and how Jesus called him on the water as an act of faith.  The name became synonymous to this story for us. 

The name’s relevance to our lives made us feel it was Someone else’s idea all along. We were flipping pages of a book already written so to speak.  And the last chapter of that book came when we learned we were having a baby girl.  In theory, I thought I would be the mom of boys, but in my spirit I knew our first would be baby Marin.  (Anyone who knows me well is laughing at this because it took four ultrasounds for me to be convinced it was actually a girl in there, and even then I was only 99% sure. I actually packed a back-up boy outfit in my hospital bag- just in case. Wow.) Guess the heart knows things the head needs proof of sometimes.

So this is how the name of our little lady “of the sea” came to be. I hope one day she will know that her name was picked with careful thought, long before she arrived, and that her name connects her to a family, a love story and a prayer to become one whom God calls “out upon the waters.”