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Recently I read a piece that struck me as amazing. My son is a federal public defender, and this commentary is from a letter one of his clients wrote to a family member (edited just a bit for length). I hope you will be as moved by this young man’s insight as I was:
“God spends a lot of time in the Bible telling us who we are. It’s as if he knew that we would doubt who that was sometimes. It’s like he knew we would be searching for our true identity some, if not most, of our lives. We would let different names define us throughout our lives…
When we are left by loved ones or people we trusted, we hear the name unworthy. When we are drowning in discouragement, living in a seemingly never-ending crisis, we hear the name forgotten. When we have our hopes up and our hearts open, only to be shut out by closed doors, we hear rejected. When we look for love in all the wrong places, we hear impure and garbage. When we go to vices to ease our pain, we hear addict, we hear forever broken. When our pain cripples us to a point where we don’t even know how to let other people in, we hear lonely. When our past seems too gross for others to forgive, we hear disgusting. It’s overwhelming, these voice we are constantly hearing. It’s suffocating. It’s really amazing the people whose voices I have allowed to name me…
But God says something else about me. There are some other names he has given me. In John 15:15, he calls me friend. In 1 Thessalonians 1:4, he calls me chosen. In Ephesians 2:10 he calls me his workmanship, his art. He calls me handmade. He calls me purposed and fashioned for good things. In 1 Corinthians 1:19, he calls my body a temple. He calls it the residence of the holy spirit. In Acts 1:8, he calls me his messenger to the world. In Galatians 3:26, he calls me his child. In Romans 5:8, he calls me greatly loved. In John 8:36, he calls me free.
It’s amazing how different these names are from the names I’m used to listening to. In the journey to discover who I really am, in the battle to uncover the truth of myself, I have learned something new about my name. This is now what I am certain of. My name is not the name the world calls me. It’s not the name my past calls me. My name is the name I choose to answer to.
When I hear lonely, disgusting, unworthy, broken, abandoned, useless and forgotten, that’s not me. Maybe those were my old names, but they are no longer the name I choose to respond to. Mine is the name I choose to spend my days living up to. The names my father, God, had given me are the only names I choose to respond to. So when I hear friend of God, chosen, loved, wanted, created with purpose, God’s messenger, God’s temple, child of God - that’s my name.”