CELERY
The bible passage Jeremiah 1:5 is familiar to many Christians.
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I dedicated you, a prophet to the nations I appointed you.
A similar but distinct and well-defined message recently struck me – Isaiah 49: 1-6. It stirred my heart and opened my eyes to what Isaiah spoke – that we bear a divine imprint other than our DNA while in our mother’s womb.
In Sr. Macrina Wiederkehr’s book, The Flowing Grace of Now, she quoted Isaiah saying that we have been called from birth by the Lord. She goes on to say that “each of us has a name deeper than the name given us by our parents. It is an inner name, etched in the soul. Unlike our DNA, it cannot be measured or recorded; it can only be revealed and discovered – and eventually proclaimed and lived.” Sr. Macrina “heard” her name during a time she was conducting a retreat. Late in her life and a few years before her death, God revealed her name – “joyous clay.”
What is the spiritual name that God has given me? I know it has to be a two-pronged response. Who am I to him and what am I to do in my life? I now wonder.
These questions reawakened in me the time I encountered a tiny white butterfly, also during a retreat, in December 2017 which moved me to start a blog late in my senior life. It symbolized what the Lord explicitly wanted me to be before him – to be humble (tiny) and pure (white) as this butterfly. He also reminded me of the service he expects of me at present – that of taking care of my husband who has dementia and pursuing the White Butterfly website, inviting others to contribute articles that would spread his good news and give Him honor, praise, and glory!
Whether or not my spiritual name has been revealed to me in my affinity to “white butterfly,” one thing is sure. Ever since I came across this Isaiah passage, I feel a deeper urgency and importance of knowing well the purpose and meaning of why I was born, why God created me. God is calling me each day to take a step further – a step higher to meet him and be touched by him. He wants my commitment to him intact, firm, and solid to the end.
I have nothing but gratitude for this grace and blessing!
ISAIAH 49: 1-6
Hear me, coastlands, listen, distant peoples. Before birth the LORD called me, from my mother’s womb he gave me my name…
He said to me, You are my servant, in you, Israel, I show my glory. Though I thought I had toiled in vain, for nothing and for naught spent my strength, Yet my right is with the Lord, my recompense is with my God..
I will make you a light to the nations that my salvation may reach to ends of the earth…
If you were to have an “inner name”,Celia, perhaps it would be connected to wings. You have long prayed to have wings, to be free to fly ever closer to God, you said. And it seems that the more you serve Him on the ground, in community with others, the more your wings take shape.
A tiny butterfly leads you to create your blog, having now evolved into this website, White Butterfly. Always and only, it has been for God’s glory.
Maybe your “inner name” has not yet been revealed to you, Celia, but I pretty much suspect you’re already living it.
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