Name Tags

Name tags seem to be a part of the working world of America. Some names are stitched on shirts. Some are attached with magnets. Some with pins. Some bear a company logo. Some are in cursive. Some in plain print. All stand for belonging, being part of that group.

Several years ago, I lost a job in which I had felt very valued and valuable. I got home and took off my name tag. As I held it in my hand, I found myself surprised that my name was still on it, next to the company logo. I had once belonged and now I didn't.

It is never this way with the Lord. We are His securely and forever. Isaiah tells us in the book in the Bible that bears his name, verse 16 of chapter 49, that we are written on the palms of His hands. The verse before this one promises us that He will never forget us. Even if a mother would have no compassion on her child, God will not forget us. Our names are tattooed, so to speak, where He can always see them.

In the same book of Isaiah, we are promised in chapter 43, verse 1, that God has called us by name. He knows my name and your name! He knows your icky middle name that you wish your mother hadn't given you. He know the first name that you aren't called but keeps popping up on mail and other computer-generated places. He knows the nickname the kids in the neighborhood had for you growing up. He knows the name you call yourself when you mess something up.

In Biblical times, a name had meaning. Parents named a child for events around their birth or for what trait they wished that child would have.Jacob, as is recorded in Genesis 25:26, was named for what went on during his birth. He came out holding onto his twin brother's heel. So his parents gave him a name that sounded like the word for "heel" in Hebrew. Evidently there was a common image at this time that pictured someone who was deceiving someone else as hanging onto his heel as he tricked him. And Jacob lived up to the name, tricking his brother out of the coveted birthright.  

If others could see inside us, they might have change in the name they called us. Maybe "Screw-up"or "Worry Wart," or "Coward," or "Traitor." But no matter what's name we might think we deserve for the mess that's deep inside us, God sees what's there and loves us.

He loves us so much that a relationship with his created beings was always what He desires the most. That relationship could never have happened (Great, powerful, holy God way out of ordinary, messed up man's reach) without something changing. A common denominator had to be established. The chemistry had to be changed in this oil and water situation. A common language had to be created, so to speak. A common meeting place had to be set up between the King who controls everything, and me and you, the needy peasants who have to admit that we can't control anything for long.  

God, in His ingenuous answer to this dilemma, sent a representative of Himself into the world. The common denominator was humanity. He represented both the oil of being a human being with the water of being a holy God. His language was love, but not fallible human love, but lasting, unbreakable love that only God could generate and sustain.

Jesus Christ, this representative, didn't come to earth to show us how it's done, like a do-it-yourself show on television. The common meeting place of God and man was not in the arena if self-effort where we look at His example and give it a try. The place which made it possible for God to meet man one-on-one was a cemetery. A place people only entered to carefully lay their loved ones to rest. Not the throne room of a palace. Not in a court of law where earthly power, which at this era in history was purely Roman, but location where a man was taken after his execution.

Why and how did an empty grave spark a reunion with a compassionate Father and His rebellious created beings? That criminal, in the eyes of those who had him killed, was totally innocent. Not just of the crimes that the angry mob shouted out, but of everything. He was sinless.

Each one of us, the created beings, are full of trash inside. We have messed up. We have hurt others and ourselves deeply. We have tried to be our own god, and we have failed.We have sinned.

This man, Jesus, died in our place. He suffered, so that we wouldn't have to. He with a clean record, voluntarily switched it with our long rap sheet. We ended up with a clean sheet. He ended up with all that we'd ever done on his record.

What is needed is that each of us admit that we each need Him. I needed a clean slate, when at the age of sixteen, I realized that He had been patiently waiting all my life for me to come to Him. All the pieces of the puzzle came together. I became His.

And so, I have a name tag that can never be taken away. There will never be a day when I will hold my name tag, which assures me that I am His precious child, in my hand and wonder why I don't belong anymore. I am His. And it doesn't depend on me. He is the one who put my name on His hand, where it can never be washed off. Not only do I think I'm valued and valuable to Him. I am. I belong.    

Where do you belong? Does the name on your shirt or your name tag describe who you really are? Are you written on the hand of the One who made you and loves you?

The Treasure

                                       But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that

   this all-surpassing power Is from God and not from us.

2 Corinthians 4:7

Waiting in the car for my husband to make a quick purchase at a store, I was full of self-pity. Why couldn’t I go inside and get lost in shelf after shelf of the materials with which my dreams would be built? Why couldn’t I go in and pour over paint colors and materials to kick my imagination into high gear for another project?  Why did I have to have a sprained back and stay off my feet here in the car? When was it ever going to heal?

Having nothing else to do, I watched people go in and out of the store. It was then that I saw them.

They were an elderly couple walking slowly. He was short and wore khaki pants and a brown jacket. She was large and had on purple sweatpants and a flowered blouse. His hair was grey. Hers was brown, though her face showed that many years had passed since that had been her natural color. She had a cane, which she leaned on, as she carefully stepped down the walk. He held her arm and helped her as she walked.

One step. Another. Then another. 

As they came closer our car, the woman looked down to scout out her next step.  Her bent head revealed a large bald spot, like a monk in centuries gone by. Otherwise attractive, the hairstyle only framed her face and neck. The rest of her head was devoid of hair!

I thought, “Oh poor woman! How horrible that must be!”

I watched them, fascinated by the bald spot that was by now quite visible. What would I do if that were me? How painful for her that must be!

But her face was one of tranquility, as she and her husband walked between cars a row over from me. The walking process continued to be slow. The bald spot continued to shine. But she  possessed the countenance of one fully content with life. I wondered why.

As if he were holding on to a treasured Stradivarius, the old gentleman held her arm and guided her. There was no doubt that he held her in high esteem, as he aided her in her arduous struggle to make it across the parking lot to the car. He would steal a glance at her now and then, with a look of admiration. In his mind he was not helping an elderly, almost bald woman across a parking lot. He was escorting a homecoming queen out onto the field, as she was making her promenade before the rest of the school. She was his girl. And his love made her feel  beloved and  special.

And then it dawned on me. This is how God sees us. We limp through life, wounded by our own decisions that cripple us and make us struggle. Things happen to us that are just part of living in this world so deeply occupied by the enemy of God. We have “bald spots,” so to speak. Created to be a beautiful reflection of Him, we instead look rather war-weary and used.

But, like the elderly man gazed at his aged wife, God looks at us, His children through eyes of love.He knows we are just “jars of clay,” yet He fills us with His Spirit. He is the treasure within us. Because we have chosen to be washed clean with the blood of His Son, we appear before him pure and spotless. He doesn’t see us as limping or shrink back in horror at our bald spots. We are beloved to Him.

 We can walk through tough circumstances with serenity. We, like the elderly lady, can have a look of utter contentment, a life of utter contentment. And all because God gazes at us, His beloved children, with eyes of love.  

As my husband returned to the car, I realized I had forgotten about my agony over my back pain. I had lost my self-pity. Instead, I felt a rich, deep sense of peace, the kind only God can give.

All I Have Was Given to Me

All I have of any worth was given to me by God. Events have no meaning unless put in the context of who God is and how He moves in this world. What happened to me or what happened to someone else is hollow and empty without the clear light of Truth shining on it. This is shown intensely when we think of our future home with Him.  

My friend Connie is dying. We are the same age. This terminal illness came as a total surprise. She had been having swelling in her hands and stomach pain for several months. What had originally been diagnosed as arthritis had ended up being stomach cancer.

After the surgery that got her digestive system to work again, I went to visit her. Her house is picturesque, one of those well-preserved jewels from the post-World War II era. It sits in a well-kept cove, where yards are neatly manicured.

As I walked up the path to her door, I thought about how we who know the Lord tend to expect our lives to be picturesque and neatly manicured, so to speak. We seem to think that belonging to the Him means a perfect existence. In young adulthood, or whenever we are hit with our first big disappointment, we’re startled. ”What’s this?” we want to say to God. “This isn’t part of the deal! How could You let this happen?”

Unless we run to God’s word and/or to the counsel of wise Christians, we can stay in this place of disappointment with God. Unless we remember the goodness of God and the promises that He will be there in trouble, we can move away from His warm Presence.

But I was about to be with someone who had not forgotten.  Connie met me at the door in fuzzy blue bathrobe that showed off her light blue eyes. Her face showed that she was very tired, but she smiled as she slowly led me to the sofa.

We talked a while about her family, the time she spend working in Washington, D.C. when she was young and how her surgery had gone. Then we were quiet, looking out her picture window at the snow.

“You know,” she said, “There’s really nothing in life but Him.” Her calm acceptance of what has suddenly come into her life is rooted in God. She has a rock solid trust that He holds the future. Most of all, He holds her.

She has moments of fear, moments of panic, but they are eased by His Word. His Presence is real, and He holds her in the pain. And she chooses to let Him hold her and rock her and cry with her.
I have told her that I want to go on the journey with her. I want to know Jesus in a deeper, richer way. I want to share her approach to heaven, to being with Him intensely and forever. After all, I will be going on that journey too, at the time appointed for me. I, too, with leave this world with all that is familiar to me and run into His arms. He will look me full in the face, as He will Connie, and say, “Welcome, daughter! I am so glad you are home!”