(Read the purpose for the Redemption Story Project here.)
One warm September morning, as Mom and I and my younger
siblings sat upright at the kitchen table, Dad read aloud a devotion on Names.
When he finished reading, Dad just-for-fun pulled out a Greek/Hebrew dictionary
and, starting with my youngest brother, looked up each person’s name and
commented on how we reflected our Name. As I waited for my name-reading, I could
hardly sit still, my skinny-girl legs stuck to the wooden chairs that were once
my Grandma’s, and I wondered: what does
Rebecca mean? Am I really like my
name?
When Dad finally looked at me with his grey-stone eyes and read:
“Rebecca—a woman whose beauty ensnares men,” his grey-stone eyes squinted with
laughter as he hit the table with the palm of his hand, and from the other side
of the table, Mom snort-laughed as she preached: “Rebecca—you should never use beauty to ensnare a man! Only bad girls do that sort of thing!” and
feeling awkward-weird about all the laughing, I timid-asked, “Can I see the
dictionary?”
I pulled the dictionary close, and looked down at my
name--R-E-B-E-C-C-A--and the picture of a pretty Israelite woman with rings on
her arms and a clay pot in her hand, and the words beside the picture: “A woman
whose beauty ensnares men.”
And I didn’t know how to feel about this name of mine---Should I be ashamed? What on earth does “ensnare”
mean? . . . . Am I beautiful like this clay-pot-carrying lady in the picture? But
in the face of Dad’s palm-slapping laughter and Mom’s snort-preaching, I buried
my questions deep in my heart, buried them until the flowering of teenage
dreams and desires made me wonder anew: Am
I beautiful?. . . Is beauty bad?
Then five years later, on yet another warm fall morning, I
was fifteen and the questions buried deep in my ten-year-old heart were pulled
into the light of day as I stared at my face in my dresser mirror and wondered:
am I beautiful? Is it bad to want to be beautiful?
On that Saturday morning, I curling-iron-curled my hair
and dressed in a cute parent-sanctioned outfit, hoping for a chance to walk
across the street to the Old Car Show in the park where I knew I might meet a
few cute boys my age (a rare occurrence when you’re a homeschooled,
church-going girl of fifteen.)
I remember Dad walking into my pink bedroom, taking one
look at my cute outfit and curled hair and asking: “Where are you going?” And
me saying: “Well, I was thinking I could take the boys [my brothers] to the car
show across the street.” And I remember my Pastor-Dad’s stone eyes flashing
fire as he spewed: “I know exactly what you’re doing! You’re getting all
dressed up so you can get the boys at that car show to look at you! That’s the
kind of thing ungodly, bad girls do—try to get boys to look at them! That sort
of behavior makes you Ugly!” And the
look on Dad’s face said without actually saying it: ‘you are Unlovable! You are
Ugly!’
In that moment Dad seared a new Name onto my
fifteen-year-old-heart: Ugly and
Unlovable.
But in my secret heart I yearned to be known by another
Name: Beautiful and Loved.
And for years I warred with God and my parents—wanting to be
Beautiful and Loved, not wanting to be Bad and Unlovable, Ugly.
And my parents—out of fear of outer beauty leading to
reputation-marring sin—didn’t explain that God made outer beauty “very good,”
but that inner beauty is even better because it reflects He who is
forever-Beautiful.
To make my parents happy, to keep myself from being
Bad—I chose to take on the name Ugly,
to wear it on my secret heart, to feed the lie that to be acceptable to God and
my parents—to be Good--I must be Ugly.
I carried this secret name with me to college, to my
first job, and into my marriage. I wanted to be Beautiful—acceptable, loved,
worthy—but believed I was Ugly at the core. And I lived up to my
secret-heart-name by pursuing mediocrity in my passions—running, writing,
hosting, speaking--and deflecting the heart-felt compliments of my husband (and
others): “I love you, you’re beautiful!” with self-deprecating words and
thoughts: “I’m Ugly. I hate myself!”
I didn’t understand that my real name was not Ugly,
but Redeemed and Beautiful, because He is the Beautiful Redeemer.
But as scripture says, “He has made everything beautiful in it’s
time” (Ecc. 3:11), and in His Time, God entered my life Story and showed me
my real name: Beautiful and Loved.
And, gradually, over time, with the help of my husband and
others who saw me as God Named me—Beautiful and Loved—I began to take risks in
my passions—to run races, to write out my heart-honest-thoughts, to start book
clubs and plan parties—and to accept my husband’s love-words as true, replacing self-hatred and self-absorption
with embracing Love.
And I’m still on that journey—to living in light of my real name, the name that God—the great
Redeemer—has seared upon my heart and the heart of every woman, every person he creates:
Beautiful and Loved.
Related Post: Naming and Becoming: Birth
For Personal
Reflection: What inaccurate/wrong names were you given as a child? How did
God re-name you when he redeemed you? How are you working to live in light of
your real, God-given name?
Redemption Story
Project: Writing Assignment #3
Part 1: What are
your families’ foundational stories? In other words, what stories tell you who
you are as a family, your family characteristics, the rules by which you
live? What stories are most frequently
told in your family at holidays and reunions? What stories are rarely or never
told—are avoided or marginalized? What false stories are told to cover up
family secrets? What stories does your family tell about you? Are the stories
told about you accurate?
Part 2: Pick one
of your family stories and write it out. Spend some time at the end reflecting
on what truth—good or bad—this story
reveals about your family and/or you as a person.
