A question that you might be asking yourself right now is “why is her name Hope?” It’s a great question if you’ve always known me as Katie, so I want to clear any confusion.
Sometimes God changes peoples names.
A few years ago I had this dream, and I have written about this dream before so you may have already heard it. If you haven’t, I will gladly share again. In this dream, someone was providing me with advice before I left for college. This person said “I have two things for you, one: be careful what you say at Liberty, and two: when you leave Liberty your name will no longer be Katie, your name will be Hope.”
For a while I didn’t take that dream literally, I just thought it meant the person that I was would change. I thought maybe I would just eminate hope, not actually be Hope.
I actually wrote about this in my tumblr blog almost two years ago, read it here: http://becominghopeposts.tumblr.com/post/100554081481/i-had-a-revelation
So I lived life as Katie, trying to become hope. Not really any idea of what to do with it.
About a year ago when I was still in Lynchburg my life came to a point of unfulfilling, emptiness, and loneliness. Then some things began to happen, which you can read about here at my other old blog site: https://becominghope7.wordpress.com/2015/05/15/keeping-you-up-to-date-with-my-life-if-you-care/
(I changed blog sites a lot)
So now you want to know what changed in the last week, right? Well while I was at training camp, I ran into feelings of doubt and confusion. I had these exact same feelings and thoughts a little over a year ago when I was choosing to move back home, because I felt God was asking me to. But I struggled a lot with that, questioning myself, asking “am I really hearing God? Is this the right thing to do? Maybe I’m just confused? Why would he have me move here and then move back home a year later?” Life during this time was rough. I was afraid..
But, I stuck it out and stayed with what I knew God had placed on my heart, i took a leap of faith. And then six months later I applied to the World Race.
You see, thoughts of doubt and confusion, questioning and fear, are things that I deal with when I make a big decision. The same feelings that I felt when I moved home were the same feelings I felt at camp. “Am I doing the right thing? Is this where God really wants me? Does he really want me to go in October? What am I doing? Why am I thinking this way?”
I wanted to get rid of these thoughts, I needed to talk to someone. I pulled one of my squad mates aside and shared with her what I was feeling. She gave me a lot of wisdom, and pointed out how the enemy comes and attacks us when we are walking the path God has chosen for us.
While she was praying for me I heard God ask me to tell my squad to not call me Katie anymore, but to call me Hope. Because he knew that at that moment hope was what I really needed. And if I’m going to bring hope to the world then I really do need to be Hope.
I was afraid for years of actually having people call me Hope. What would they think? Would they think it’s weird? What if they don’t understand? So instead, I would just have people at church or my close friends call me Hope, because I knew they wouldn’t think or ask those things.
But when I shared with my squad what I was dealing with and what God had asked, they had no problem with it. They were gracious, they were loving, they gathered around me and prayed.
And so, they called me Hope.
I know to some it seems weird, it’s different, you don’t hear this happening often. But I want to encourage you, as Hope, not to feel that way. It’s not weird. Sure, it’s different. No, it doesn’t happen every day. But it does happen, and it’s actually beautiful. I’m honored that the God of the universe loves me, sees me as he made me, and cares enough about something so simple as my name.
This doesn’t mean that my parents named me wrong, it just means God had a different plan to redeem me. And he redeemed me as Hope.
So if you’re feeling up to it, I would love if you decided to call me Hope. If you have a problem with it, you can talk to me about it, (I don’t bite). It’s actually very freeing to finally feel this way, and to allow myself to let go of Katie. Not saying Hope is different than Katie, but Hope has a way of bringing something else to the table that Katie couldn’t: freedom, unconditional love, boldness, vulnerability, joy, and of course, hope.
Much love to you,
Hope
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