what's in a name?

I hated the bus ride to and from school as a kid. And, to be honest, as a teenager! Boarding the bus, especially in the afternoon, was great reason for sweaty palms, heart-pounding panic, and nearly teeth-chattering fear. I wish I were exaggerating!

The bus was a free zone:  no teachers, no monitors...just sixty kids and a forty-five minute free-for-all of cursing, intimidating, fighting, and downright meanness. Some days you were the intimidator, other days the intimidated.

Most days, I was the intimidated. I tried to be quite and invisible until someone chose me as a target. And even then, I'd wait as long as I could until I stood up for myself. One time, a girl stood in my face yelling curse words at me for quite some time before I finally stood up and yelled back at her. She slapped me and knocked me back into my seat. I didn't get back up. But, I was kicked off the bus for three days while she went on with her tormenting discipline-free. Lesson learned? Just stay quiet.

(My parents didn't discipline me for my bus suspension, by the way. The sentiment I got from them was almost as if they put my on their shoulders and paraded me around, proud of the fact that I hadn't gotten into a hair-snatching, face-scratching, out-and-out battle with this girl. They just drove me to school for three days, without complaint.)

I always dreaded school. From kindergarten through twelfth grade. Many of my interactions there were very hard on such a sensitive kid. Consequently, I had a horrible view of myself. I believed far too much of what was said to me or about me. I soaked it in. By high school, I was despondent I'd ever be worth anything or ever be accepted. I was more than despondent, I was depressed.

I felt God didn't see me or know what I was going through. I searched Scripture and was comforted by the fact that He, too, was despised and rejected. But that still didn't make me feel loved and valued. It just let me know I was in Good company.

My junior year, when a friend traveled to England, he returned with a gift for me. It meant a lot that he thought about me in his travels. But what meant more was the lesson I learned from his gift. He gave me a tea cup. It would be about eight years before I embraced a love of hot tea, so I was a bit confused. But when I read the cup, I knew it had been carefully selected. It said, "Amanda, your name means, 'Worthy of Love', and you can say that again!"

Worthy of love. I had no idea. No clue that the name I carried - the name that had become synonymous with shame and humiliation, actually said over me each time it was spoken what God was crying out for me to hear, "I love you, I love you. I made you beautiful. I made you worthy to be admired, loved, by others. By Me." Worthy of love, with your frizzy hair, bountiful hips, lack of braces, and offbeat sense of humor. Worthy of love regardless of what small-minded folks may say. Worthy of love because He declared it over me. Even my enemies unknowingly declared that I was loved when they spoke my name. How awesome is that!?

That's how the Lord got to me. Every verse I memorized about His love set the stage. And each person who demonstrated care and love toward me watered the seed. But God used an even smaller, more common thing, to say, "Amanda, I love you. You." God starting a soul-healing work in me through a tea cup which sits in my cabinet still today. He has continued that work, and He will finish it.

And that work is part of the reason we have taken, are taking, so much time to name our son! His name will proclaim over him all the days of his life what we feel is important for him to know. It will speak of his calling, his God, his identity. So, to us, a name is not just a name, but an opportunity to speak life over our boy every time we call his name.

What shall it be!? Well, we will certainly have to decide before we take him home from the hospital! And when he decides to grace us with his presence, we will declare his wonderful, magnanimous name to the whole world! Our Fragments family included.

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If you don't know the meaning of your name, give Google a holler and find out! I've actually used babynames.com a lot, even pre-pregnancy to find the meaning of names. (MANY are accurate. But, for some, I had to do a little more research.)