A New Name
"What's in a name?" Shakespeare once posed.
I've been asking this same question recently, although for very different reasons. As I've been on my own healing journey in the past few months, I'm beginning to realize the power of a given name. No, not the one you're bestowed with at birth but the additional ones people place on you... or the ones you place on yourself. These are the names that come to signify your value and your identity sometimes just as much if not more so, than the one you were called from the beginning.
Think about it: in some subtle and not-so-subtle ways, we take on the significance of the things we're named in this world, for better or for worse. These take the form of labels and statements and declarations and opinions that shape how we view ourselves, the world, others, and even God. They either clarify or cloud up the perspective we carry, and they either diminish or enhance the inner things that make us who we are.
These also take the form of the experiences we have and the circumstances we find ourselves in. The unfortunate or fortunate opportunities and situations that change us, mould us, redirect us. We become, in a way, the sum of all these twists and turns in life, creating a certain impression of ourselves and what we've turned into because of them.
Sometimes, these names can be positive and helpful and od. But equally, they can damage and destroy and wreck you to the point where you lose sight of all you truly are and simply identify with the shattered pieces that are left and consider that the whole your life has now been reduced to. This is particularly true for those who have found themselves hurt at the abusive, controlling, manipulating hands of harmful people who crushed their spirit, squashed their value, killed their individuality, and made them believe that there were someone they are not.
Names can do a lot to us. They certainly have to me.
I think back through certain seasons of my life and realize that I've had several that have come to define me in various ways. As someone who has lost a lot relationally, either through death or a parting of ways, I could easily say my name is Grieving. Or, as a verbal abuse survivor, I could say my name is Unwanted or Undesirable or Not Enough. Having fought all my life to have my voice heard and my story be accepted, I could also say my name is Rejected and Unwelcome.
For others, their name could be...
And the list goes on forever.
We absorb these titles and descriptions either on our own or from the mouths of others and think that's determinative of the entirety of who we are at our core being. And then we wonder why we grow increasingly detached from our true selves, from true community, from the loving arms of God.
Lately, I've started to understand that part of the healing process is learning how to identify with a new name. All over Scripture, there are passages that speak of God giving us a new name and creating a new existence for us in the aftermath of whatever our past may be. The placing upon us of a new identity, rooted in how He sees us and not how we've seen ourselves or been seen previously. I used to think this just applied to spiritual status and a person surrendering their life over to God but now I see that this applies just as much to our personal stories and the life we are wanting to create following whatever we have suffered at the hands of others or just the common adversity of life.
Stepping into a new way of seeing yourself is essential if you are to move forward with God into fresh chapters.
I'm learning slowly that we are not what others have called us, we are not what we have called ourselves, nor are we what circumstances have made us out to be. We are not what we've been told or even what has happened to us. We are what God has declared us to be. We are, regardless of condition or position, spoken over and named in love. Instead of our list of names being comprised of the hardships and hurtful things we've lived through, our list now starts to look like...
And the list goes on forever.
This. This! is what you and I need to be living in every day. This is how shame gets reframed and old memories get remade and the picture changes into something you are proud of because you realize that the words and places and things and people and seasons that hurt you aren't the whole story. They aren't your whole person. Deep inside, you are still a lovely soul with big dreams and deep hopes and a strong heart that is deserving of acceptance and value and love and respect.
So when the flashbacks come and the wounds open back up and you struggle to keep moving into this new way of thinking and living that God is calling and inviting you to, remind yourself of your new name. One that's opposite of everything you've ever been told or felt about yourself or your journey. One that you recognize on a deep level every time you hear someone that "gets it" say it over you or when God speaks it, too. One that, like a new language, you're learning to verbalize over your own self day by day because it's what you want to grow into. It's where you know the healing lies.
For too long, some of us have lived in the shackles of pain and blame, believing there was no way we could change or be anything other than what we've been stuck with for all this time. Yet, I'm here to say that the One who promises to make all things new doesn't see us the way we do or the way others have. He is coming to us now, wanting to hide us in the shelter of His wings - to whisper in our tired ears that we are made in the image of the Giver of Life and that alone gives us the permission to be our unique and beautiful selves without shame. To take on this new name and step into a new day of His making just for us.
I don't know about you, but that gives me hope. That helps me see things a different way. And it somehow starts to silence the haunting voices that have caged my spirit for years. I'm becoming free indeed. I'm learning how to recognize and hear my new name and my prayer is that you also will start to hear the new name God has placed on you so that we each can begin to walk in newness of life.
Late winter snowflakes fall outside my winter as I type this, and I'm once again reminded that God takes even the worst things, the ugliest things, and restores them into something pleasing and fresh and wonderful. And these broken, beat-up hearts of ours are not exempt. Ever. God has done it over and over, and there's reason to doubt that He won't do it again.
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