Our Baby Selah

We have decided to name our baby Selah.

The book Heaven describes a little boys experience in Heaven. There is one part in particular that hits close to home. The little boy tells his mom he met his other sister in heaven. His mom is astonished, having never told her young son about his miscarried sister. When his mom asks what her name was the boy responds,

"she didn't have a name mommy, you guys didn't name her."

Some may find it odd we decided to name our unborn child and to be honest it took us several weeks to decide that we even wanted to but when we both separately stumbled upon the name Selah, we knew God desired our child to have a name.

While pregnant the Psalms brought me great comfort. When we lost the baby, my husband would read Psalm after Psalm to me. It brought me peace knowing I wasn’t alone in my distress.

“Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am in distress;
my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
my soul and body with grief.” Psalm 31:9

After seeing Selah at the end of a Psalm, my husband had looked up the meaning. I found myself looking up the same word after opening to Psalm 49. Upon discovering the meaning, I knew it was the perfect name for our baby.

The word Selah is spoken roughly 71 times within the Psalms. The exact meaning of the word is unknown, but it’s believed to mean ‘pause, or reflect’. Other interpretations have said it may mean ‘forever’.

Unknown, pause, reflect, forever.

Baby Selah has done all of those things for us.

We have been brought to a place of complete unknown.

We may never know the exact meaning of why we lost this child, may never know what God’s plan is in it all and may never know why life seems so unfair.

Baby Selah has also allowed us to pause, to stop our busy lives, and to reflect.

We have had the opportunity to quiet ourselves and rejoice in all the good God has done. To praise God for the thousands of gifts we are thankful for.

And we have been given the opportunity to reflect upon the fleetingness of our lives and to rejoice in the hope of forever in heaven.

In the Psalms Selah is the indication that we are to pause at the end of an important verse.

For us Selah represents a verse in our lives, an important one. While it may have been a very short verse it doesn’t detract from our need to Selah, to pause and reflect.

So that is why we pause, reflect and name our baby Selah. So that she will forever have a name.

But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave: for he shall receive me. Selah

(Psalm 49:15)