Saturday, October 25, 2008
what's in a name?
After years of thinking that my name meant "contented one" and wrestling with all the issues that that implies (mostly because I am NOT contented), I found out about 15 minutes ago that my name actually means "weary, or grieved". I don't believe that the meaning of your name holds power over you or that you are doomed to follow what it dictates about your life, but i do think that names are important and can say a lot about who you are. This particular instance blew my mind because I have always found weariness something that I am much more comfortable with than I am with prolonged periods of joy. Part of this is due to the fact that when I am happy, I feel less able to empathize with the sorrows of my friends and those around me. I would rather feel weary and with them than be happy and not able to fully enter into the suffering with them. So yes, weariness and grief are a huge part of what I view as beautiful in my life. Its not like I particularly enjoy suffering any more than anyone else its just that I feel most connected to people when I am experiencing sorrow with them, than when I experience joy with them. And as a result, most of my beautiful memories have some anguish wrapped up in them. So what does this mean for me? A Leah? Well, I hope to truly find hope, truth, beauty, and joy in dark places. Dark places in my own life, and dark places in other's. I hope to some day be able to see the darkness rebuked and Light to fully dwell in this weary, weary world with its miserable, grieving people. And so when I see the poems and words I have written, I see weariness, but i also see a rejection that this is how it is supposed to be. I WILL see darkness rebuked, I will see weariness and grief removed, wiped from eyes, and I will see JOY reign in our hearts and lives again. Maybe someday my name will mean something else. In revelation it speaks about a name that God has specially chosen for each of us, so secret that noone but himself knows it. Someday I will hear him call my hame and I will know without a shadow of a doubt that weariness and grief will be just the faintest bit of who I was, and no longer who I am.
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