There is no question that I love this place.
There is no question that I love the people in it.
Including my sweet baby for the month, Ruby.
In all actuality, “Ruby” is her blog name. A name to protect her identity online. When researching what her Hindi name meant, I grew more and more distraught as I clicked through page after page. There was one of two results : No result, or, “Meaning : Question Mark, or ‘Unknown’”.
My precious, smiling, curious baby…a question mark?
This has been a common theme here in South East Asia for me. Who am I? What is my identity and where do I find it? I know what it is in my head…I can *tell* you that I am a daughter of the most High King, and that He created me to be just as I am right this second and that He loves me.
But do I believe it?
In general, I’ve been learning about myself that I have a lot of names that I call myself…and that people have called me.
Ugly.
Annoying.
Doomed-to-fail
Unloveable.
Fat.
Not-good-enough
Slut.
Hypocrite
I could go on. But you get the idea. I get all caught up in these things becoming my identity. My name. Like “Ruby”, my names of this world mean all the things that this world sees as imperfect. For Ruby, it’s a giant Question Mark. Everything. All of it. She was dropped off and abandoned at a Hospital when she was just a month old, fought and overcame MRSA and had a giant chunk of skin taken out of her shoulder, and she currently weighs 4lbs. Not just that…but she is an Orphan. How uncertain her life is. In the eyes of this world, her identity “sucks”. Who would want to be her? How unlucky is she!?
Then, after I finished looking at her Hindi name…
with tears in my eyes, I typed into the Google Search Box : “What does the name Ruby mean?”
Results : “Behold, a daughter…a precious gem.”
I mean come on.
We’re given new names the second we invite Jesus into our lives.
I went from Ugly…to Beautiful. Annoying…to enjoyed. Doomed-to-fail…to Jeremiah 29:11. Unloveable…to adored. Fat…to made in His image. Not-good-enough…to more than enough. Slut…to redeemed. Hypocrite…to forgiven.
Just let that sink in for a moment…will you? I’ve been given new names. YOU have been given new names! Names that the God of the universe has given to us!
2 Corinthians 5 : 17 says : “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ Jesus, he is a new creation. The old has passed away, behold ; the new has come.
I don’t call “Ruby” by her Hindi name…I call her by her blog name now. Her new name. Her precious name. And I’ve been learning to call myself by the names the Lord has given to me. Not in what people think of me, or what I think of myself.
How freeing it is to be new. To have a clean slate.
As for Ruby, her future is uncertain. But you better believe that every second I spend with her, I will be sure to love her like I will never leave.
And that she’ll never stop being that precious gem to me.
Just like I will never stop being that precious daughter to the Lord.
Amen.
1 Peter 2:9
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light
