Sunday, March 05, 2006

We Are Named

I was listening to a song called "Image of the Invisible" by Thrice this week:
We're more than carbon and chemicals
We are the image of the invisible

We all were lost now we are found
No one can stop us or slow us down
We are the named and we are known
We know that we'll never walk alone

Though all the world may hate us, we are named
The shadow overtake us, we are known

The lines that really got me from this song were where it says "we are named". Sometimes, when I think about how I was born with a different name to a different family, and I'm not allowed to know about any of it, it feels as if I'm in the middle of an identity crisis. Who was I supposed to be, if I were normal like everyone else?

I had a fairly crappy week last week, for no apparent reason. Nothing awful happened to me. I just had an overall feeling of incompetence and not belonging anywhere. Everywhere I went I just kept coming back to the thought "What in the world am I even doing here?" I'm sure it happens to everyone, adoptees and non-adoptees alike. It's a scary place to be when you get to that point in your thinking. I thought maybe I should stop the whole search for my birthmom because its too stressful to wait and she probably doesn't want to contact me anyway. I was convinced that I just needed to quit my job because there's somebody out there who would be great at it, and that person was not me. Stupid stuff like that. A lot of times (probably most of the time), my own thinking is my biggest problem.

If there is one thing that I have learned up to this point in my life, its that people aren't mistakes. I do believe that, but I also tend to forget it. Sometimes I don't realize that I've stepped back into the "I'm a mistake and I'm not even supposed to be here" thinking until someone or something jolts me back into reality and reminds me of the truth.

The truth is that as curious as I am about my past and as great or as awful it might be to learn about it, the outcome shouldn't affect who I really am because long before I was ever thought of by any person, God named me and knew I would be here. He knew it was time for me to be here and even though not a single person here on earth had it in their plans for me to come into existence, here I am.

Jeremiah 29:11 has been my favorite scripture since I was a kid: "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." Maybe my name and my family haven't remained constant, but one thing has always been consistent - God has always been there overseeing everything for me. When I was a kid, I always imagined God saying the words of Jeremiah 29:11 to me when I was a baby in the womb, in the hospital and in foster care - it gives me a lot of peace to think of that. Just reading that verse makes me feel...something.

My reality check came at church this weekend - a lot of what we talked about was finding your identity in Christ, and not in your circumstances. Jeremiah 29:11 was one of the scriptures we covered. It couldn't have come at a better time - I needed some guy to yell it at me from a stage into a microphone to be reminded that being someone's "mistake" isn't a mistake at all to God. He's the one who really named me.

4 Comments:

Blogger Cookie said...

Someone somewhere recently said that their mom told them that they were not a "mistake", but a surprise. I like that distinction - there is such a difference.

I do not like to think of my son as a "mistake" either. The world is a better place cause he's in it; he loves his life and enjoys it to the max. The "mistake" was that I did not cherish, realize how lucky I was to have him, figth to keep and raise him. That was the mistake - never him.

Know what you mean about feeling lousy for no specific identifiable reason - happens sometimes, huh?

7:28 AM  
Blogger petunia said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

9:44 AM  
Blogger petunia said...

I think i was typing blindfolded - sorry about that....

I just wanted to say, i think everyone has a God given purpose but most people don't even care to know what it is----you sound like you are on the hunt and on your way to finding out-----great post!

9:46 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I have had a lot of "How did I get here?" moments. I came to the same conclusion about my existence. Even though I was unplanned by my first parents, God planned for me and has always known my name.

4:42 PM  

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