What's In a Name?

 To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it. -Revelation 2:17

What's in a name?  I used to believe that names didn't mean a whole lot any more.  In biblical times... yes... they were important, but not today.  In biblical days a name told who the person was by more than a mere lablel. One's name reached inside to tell something about the person.  Names had meanings.  And when God changed a person's name... Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Simon to Peter, or Saul to Paul... you can bet it was because the person was going to be different from their old self from there on out!

But it's not the same today is it?  I wouldn't think so.  But I'm getting some great beach reading time on Marco Island and I have been reading a thought-provoking novel in which the main character is a woman who has her name stripped from her and is given a name which only identifies her as the property of someone else.  She describes missing her original name like this:

"My name isn't Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it's forbidden.  I tell myself it doesn't matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter.  I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I'll come back to dig up, one day.  I think of this name as buried.  This name has an aura around it, like an amulet, some charm that's survived from an unimaginably distant past.  I lie in my single bed at night, with my eyes closed, and the name floats there behind my eyes, not quite within reach, shining in the dark."  -From A Handmaid's Tale: A Novel, by Margaret Atwood

It made me think about my own name.  I have been Karen for 53 years.  It is more a part of me than anything I have and even though there are thousands (maybe hundreds of thousands) of Karens throughout the world, in my mind, my "Karen" is different from any other Karen.  My name somehow encompasses my personality and life experiences and talents and family and other relationships.  Yes, a name really does have a lot of meaning.

Now imagine that there is a name that is is completely unique to the person God created you to be.  A person that sums up your very essence and is different from any other name.  It is your name alone and describes you alone and would never fit any other person ever created.  It will be a name given by God... the one who created us and knows us even better than we know ourselves.  What a name that will be!

Father,

What a day it will be when you give us our new and real name!  Thank you for knowing us and loving us.  Amen.

Joys:  Perfect weather all vacation week; time to spend with my sister Kathy; Palm trees