I Am Renamed

The one who is victorious I will make a pillar in the temple of my God. Never again will they leave it. I will write on them the name of my God and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which is coming down out of heaven from my God; and I will also write on them my new name.

—Revelation 3:12

Call me antiquated or old school, I don’t care. Adopting my husband’s last name might’ve been my favorite part of getting married.

Engaged at twenty years old, I spent an inordinate amount of time practicing my new last name, both written and verbal. I doodled it in notebooks and walked through my parents’ house saying it out loud. I imagined writing checks with my new name, answering to my new name, sending letters with my new name. I even printed special return-address labels, excited as I was about my new marriage.

I never dreamed my new name wouldn’t last. And when my husband left after six years of marriage, I had to wear a name I never wanted to claim: divorced.

For more than a decade, this name plagued me. Embarrassed, I did everything I could to hide the truth from those I met. At church, parties, and community gatherings, I pretended I was a normal twentysomething, unmarred by a broken marriage. Inevitably, the subject of family came up. They asked their questions in innocence, simply making conversation. They didn’t realize the gaping wound each question opened in me: “Are you married? How many children do you have? Where’s your husband?”

I’m pretty sure my face flushed with each inquiry. Unable to avoid the truth, I hung my head and delivered an honest reply, trying to swallow my shame as I bounced my two-year-old on my hip.

“No, I’m not married. I’m divorced.”

Awkward silence always followed my admission. Nobody knows what to say to a young, divorced mother. I interpreted their silence as judgment, insecure as I was. Perhaps my assumption was accurate, perhaps not. But it didn’t matter. I judged myself.

The label followed me well into my second marriage, when schoolteachers noticed one of my children had a different last name than the others. And at sporting events, when former spouses showed up, creating a complicated family drama. Not to mention countless awkward explanations to old friends who hadn’t yet heard of my first marriage’s demise.

Divorced. Divorced. Divorced.

I imagined the words being whispered behind my back as friends and family struggled to make sense of this unexpected turn of events. I’d failed at the one thing I needed to get right—marriage and family. And no matter how much I loved my new husband and children, we’d never be able to recreate the traditional family we’d lost.

As time passed, the name grew unbearably heavy, stifling. Until I finally realized I didn’t have to wear a label of shame anymore.

“You will be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the LORD’s hand, a royal diadem in the hand of your God” (Isa. 62:2–3).

Divorce was part of my story. But it couldn’t dictate the future of my family unless I let it. Divorce is a dot on the timeline of my life, a dot that has impacted multiple other dots, no doubt about it. But a dot just the same.

I am not divorce.

I am not failure.

I’m a reflection of the life and presence of Christ. I carry His name, I wear His covering, I walk in His grace and mercy and forgiveness. My name has been established by the God who claims me as His own. I’m His.

A day is coming, promises the book of Revelation, when our knight on a white horse will ride in to exact both judgment and mercy upon this earth. When that day comes, He will bestow on you and me a new name, His name. All the other names and labels we’ve lugged around for a lifetime will be swallowed up by a bigger and better one.

No more shame. No more need to hide. No more labels we can’t shed.

Instead of broken, rebuilt.

Instead of lost, found.

Instead of unwanted, chosen.

Instead of unmarried, married to the Most High.

The weight of every lesser name we’ve carried will be lifted from our shoulders, even as the one who calls us His own places a crown on our heads. As a groom calls his bride to his side, He will call us to Himself. No more shame, no more embarrassed admissions. Instead, chosen. Wanted. And renamed by our one true love.

In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there’s no danger that we will confuse God’s work with our own, or God’s glory with our own.

—MADELEINE L’ENGLE, WALKING ON WATER