Do You Know Who You Are?

A little over ten years ago I was very pregnant.  It was a rough pregnancy, to say the least, but joyous none-the-less.  I had internal fits of wondering what the heck I had done, followed by fits of the “can’t waits” until he got here.  I am sure it was all hormones, but I was a little afraid I wouldn’t know what to do with a baby.  After all, any baby I had every held had burst into tears!

I knew after such a problematic 8 months that if I could just hear my baby cry when he was born that everything would be alright.  I delivered only 3 weeks early and immediately he began to wail and scream.  It was music to my ears.  It was also like an internal switch had been turned on and I knew exactly what this little person needed.  I didn’t have a clue what anyone else needed, but his needs were  seemingly born into my being at that very moment.  I knew his looks, his sounds, his needs.

The nurses would take him to the nursery to do whatever it is they do to babies and then bring him back to me.  There was an almost constant parade of crying babies up and down the hallway.  But, remarkably enough, none of those sounds got my attention.  Until my baby came down the hallway.  After only hearing him cry once when he was born, I was able to distinguish my baby’s cry from all the others hours later.  I knew his hungry cry, his mad cry, his ‘I’m cold’ cry and believe it or not, his fake cry.  (He had one and used it often!) There was something in my being that identified with him from the minute he was born.  I knew he was mine and I knew his voice.  As he has grown, even still, we can be in a crowd, on a loud playground, anywhere, and when my child calls me, I know it is him.  Other children can cry out “mom”, and I don’t even flinch.  Other children can cry, and while I am concerned, I do not rush. 

In the Book of John, after the Resurrection of Jesus, Mary was at the tomb and was crying because she thought somone had taken her Lord away.  She even spoke to the angels about the matter.  Then Jesus walked up  behind her and she turned to see him.  She did not realize it was him.  He asked her why she was crying and she told him, all the while thinking he was the gardner!  Then something amazing happened.  He said her name.

She immediately knew who he was and cried out to him.  She recognized in her being that her name was being spoken by the one who loved her most.  She was fulfilled and at once whole again. She heard her name spoken by her Lord.

Do you hear your name spoken by your Lord?  Do you have such a connection in your being with him that when he breathes your name you hear it and redspond?  It doesn’t matter if/when he says someone else’s name.  It matters when he says yours.  When you were born into Him, your soul immediately was able to recognize his voice, and He, yours.  Are you hearing it?  Are you too busy?  Has it been drowned out?

We sing a song at church that says “I know who I am, I am yours, and You are mine, Jesus”  Take some time to listen for Him to breathe your name.  He does it often.  And he smiles when he says it………..