It’s interesting, isn’t it, that other people choose our names? Maybe it’s not that interesting to you because it’s completely normal. After all, people have been having and naming their children for thousands of years.
Have you ever noticed how names are chosen? It seems that name patterns change with each generation. For myself who is a millennial, I was given a name that honored family members. I find this a commonality among many of my fellow millennial friends. I was named after my mother’s grandmother and my dad’s mother, both Mary. My middle name, Katelyn, was chosen as the source for my given nickname at birth, Katie. Growing up this nickname never bothered me, in fact I loved it, because I so disliked my first name, Mary.
Me, Growing Up
When I was in Kindergarten my bus driver would come on the intercom before a student’s bus stop to let you know to get ready. Despite countless efforts on my end to let her know that I wanted to be called Katie, she always announced “Mary, your stop is coming up!” This was an alert to the other kids on the bus to begin belting the tune, “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” As I grew into middle and high school, friends and classmates would ask me, “why don’t you like being called Mary?” I would reply, “Well, Mary is a name for an old woman, like my grandma. And, I’ve just always been called Katie.” My honest answer should have been, “because Mary is not who I am.”
It wouldn’t be until later in life that I realized Katie was not it either.
If you will, fast forward with me to a night when I was 20-years-old. It was springtime, a few months before I moved to Lynchburg, Virginia, to start school at Liberty University. I had a dream where God came to me and said He had two things to share with me. The first is not important anymore, but the second is; “when you leave Liberty your name will no longer be Katie, your name will be Hope.” I woke up from that dream and immediately wrote it down, I felt it was so pertinent to my life and I could not forget about it. I remember telling people at work a few days later, and they thought it was neat, but also kind of weird.
As time went by I thought more about it, and received wisdom on it from various people in my life whom I was close with. After being a student at LU for a few months I felt God telling me that this was to be my name, but I was still so afraid to actually use it. So, I began to use the title Hope as a middle name on social media. I kept it this way for a long time, and then more change began to take place in my life. God asked me to move back home after having only attended LU for one year. This was a hard transition and one I didn’t understand, but it lead to the very thing He had been calling to me about: The World Race.
A Call to Hope
After moving home from Lynchburg in 2015, I remembered that dream. “When you leave Liberty” would play over and over again in my head. So, I started introducing myself to new people as Hope, and to my new church family as well. I decided that it would make it easier for me to accept if I only chose to use it with new people, people who didn’t already know me as someone else. In the beginning of 2016, after months of hearing God speak to me about the World Race, I finally applied.
If you are unfamiliar with the World Race, it is an 11-month long mission trip that takes you to 11 countries. One day, a little over a year ago, I was at training camp for the World Race. My squad had 10 days of training in Georgia before our launch into the great unknown of the beautiful creation we call ‘Earth.’ It was at this camp that I introduced myself to everyone as Katie, even though these were new people to me. Fear can seriously make or break a person, and it was certainly trying to keep me from stepping into my destiny. However, half-way into our week God started calling to me about this.
I was starting to struggle. I was confused. I was doubtful. Was I doing the right thing? Did God really call me to this year? My efforts to settle this alone with God failed, and so I grabbed a dear friend on my squad and asked her to pray with me. She listened to my heart, gave me sound wisdom, and then prayed. As she prayed I heard God say to me, “why are these people not calling you Hope?” She finished praying and I told her I knew what I needed to do, but I would need her help because I could not do it alone. We gathered my squad and I gave a short speech that I honestly cannot remember, I think I blacked out (inside joke.)
I knew this was right, but I was incredibly afraid of it. I was afraid of this new name, I didn’t understand it. I was afraid of how people were going to react to me changing my name. Even though it was not me at all, it was all God. I knew people were going to question it, say that it was weird, or worse, tell me that they would never agree to call me by this new name. But, one thing God worked me through this year was fear. I let go of all fears that held me back from being my true self, the woman that God created me to be, the woman He saw me as before the beginning of time.
And He saw me as Hope.
Maybe you are one of those people who think this is weird, who question it, or feels they will never call me Hope; I want to offer these few points for you.
- God Did It
He’s been in the business of changing people’s names for quite some time now. He does so for a pretty powerful couple in Genesis, Abraham and Sarah, who were before Abram and Sarai. Then in a very familiar set of words, like the one used in my own dream, he speaks to Jacob through an Angel in Genesis 32 saying, “28 Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel.”
Although it is never clearly stated that God changes Paul’s name from Saul, it does say in Acts 13:9, “Saul, who was also called Paul,” and from there on out is referred to as Paul. A man who changed from being the biggest persecutor of Christians to the most well-known Apostle of Jesus. This name that he was ‘also called’ does not gain its popularity until the life-changing event happens of God revealing himself to Paul.
- He Is Unchanging
If I believe what Hebrews 13:8 says, that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” If I read that Revelation 1:8 says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, who is, and who was, and who is to come.” If I know that Malachi 3:6 says, “I the Lord do not change.” Certainly, if I have read and know all these things, then I know God must still be in the business of changing people’s names today. He is the same God right now, He was the same God back then (Tye Tribbet, anyone?)
- Creation Reveals It
Did you know that baby Dolphins pick their own names? Neither did I until I listened to a podcast entitled ‘Names,’ that was put out by The Liturgists, a podcast I frequently listen to. It is hosted by this guy called Science Mike, Michael Gungor, a very well-known artist in the Christian music industry, and Lissa Paino. Their podcasts revolve around modern-day issues on science, art, and faith. If you’ve never listened to them, you should give them an ear.
Back to dolphins. I found it so interesting that they choose their names. It’s certainly interesting enough that they have names, let alone that they pick their names themselves, which then other dolphins accept and respond to them as. It certainly makes me feel more like a dolphin than a human knowing this fact. With the many people now-a-days who wrestle with identity crisis, I wonder if a lot of it is because people are trying to ‘reconcile their call with who they are.’ [1]
A Name Is a Declaration
Just recently I saw an Instagram post that speaks to this. If you know of the FearlessLA church, you know its pastors Jeremy and Christy. They have a daughter named Lyric, and she shared a short video of Lyric singing. She captioned it “She sings all the time. Naming your child is a powerful declaration.” If we’re honest, some children are given awful names, but also some given incredibly unique names, some ordinary names, or some powerful names.
One thing I have learned through this process of becoming Hope is that names are not just titles, but they are a purpose-filled declaration.
Hello, My Name Is Hope
It is one thing to have a certain name that means something special, and it is another when certain people use that name. There is an incredible power in hearing one’s own name, because it calls something up in a person. It can be as a reminder to someone that, “yes, that is my name, I have it for a purpose, and this is who that name invokes me to be.”
That’s how I feel anytime someone calls me Hope. It truly is my name, and it reveals my purpose.
I so deeply hope that you would do the same.
Forever looking at the glass half-full,
Hope
Sources
- Gungor, Michael, Paino, Lissa, and Science Mike. “Names.” Podcast audio. The Liturgists Podcast. iTunes Podcasts. August 15, 2017.
