names

Notice names. Perhaps your surname, family name, or a nickname you have been given or earned. The names of people and pets around you.

Consider the names of places where you spend your time or routes you often travel. We map our lives by place names, by addresses, by locations that have labels attached to them. Our mountains and rivers, oceans and beaches, lakes and towns all have names.

We name buildings, vessels and vehicles. We name businesses, clubs, teams, institutions, and groups with which we have connection and belonging. Some are merely familiar, while others hold memories and emotions attached to them, and stir a response at their utterance. Names often contain stories within them, if we’re curious.

Give thanks for the names that shape the landscape of your life and give context to your identity.  — Rev Gail

O give thanks to the Lord, call on his name,
    make known his deeds among the peoples.
Sing to him, sing praises to him,
    tell of all his wonderful works.
— 1 Chronicles 16:8-9

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God.  And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. — Colossians 3:16-17

The great struggle of the Christian life is to take God’s name for us, to believe we are beloved and to believe that is enough. ― Rachel Held Evans