No one gets to name you.

"No one gets to name you,” she leaned in and whispered. I let out a short laugh, but not the joyful kind. All of my life I’ve been named.

Sensitive.
 Average. 
Too much like my dad. 
These are some of the names I would like to forget.

When I was younger, my mother used to tell me with a gentle smile that my name meant “consecrated to God”.  Men and women twice my age would tell me that I was a “wise river”… But is a river really wise if it can’t understand its own depth?

Like how I have such terrible anxiety when it comes to dealing with conflict that I shut down. Or how I always seem to break things, just because I don’t handle anything with enough care. Then there are the things I’ve quit even though I was good at them, simply because I like to feel the challenge of something new.

There were years I tried to define myself through a megaphone, and other years when I hid as much of myself as I could. I believed that anything I tried was better than being named someone or something I wasn’t. I ran and I protected and I fought to be known. I fought for approval, while desperately trying to convince the world that I didn’t need it.  I flailed and I sank, all for the chance to say, “THIS is who I am.”

“You should be [this]”

“You need to change [this]”

"God wants you to be [this way]"

I may not always understand the currents running through my veins, or even consider them wise, but there are some truths about myself I have come to know.

I won’t apologize for feeling too much or loving too deeply in a world that squashes our emotions. I won’t neglect an opportunity to say, “I’m for you and I’m with you,” when I’ve known far too well the shout of, “you’re on your own”. I won’t close off the ache from a fallen world that groans within, but I will embrace the Kingdom that is to come. I won’t be embarrassed by my tears at hearing an unkind word, for those words are a deep brokenness in disguise. I will not be held to a Proverbs 31 standard, but to the words and actions of Jesus Christ. For a Proverbs 31 woman is not contingent on 21 lines of scripture, but on her certainty in her Maker. A Proverbs 31 woman is no one unless she is aiming to be more like her Creator. And I will not be more concerned with the personal lives of others than I am with being personal.

And until then, I struggle to forget all the rest that made me question… me. Because in a world where not enough kind words are spoken, we can choose to speak kindly to ourselves. Remember who you’ve been called to be from the One who matters most, and decide that no one else gets to name you anything that doesn’t coincide. If I expect to be “set apart”, I can’t always expect to be understood. 

And I'm learning that people will always have an opinion of you. Don't let opinions settle into your heart without first filtering them through God's truth about who you are.