"We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten who we really are.”
-GK Chesterton
Who you are now is not who you were.
Who you are becoming has not yet been defined.
This is our greatest gift and our sharpest terror.
You must remember. Do you even want to?
Remember what you have lived, how you have bled, what you have survived. Write the story; dance and weep in the sway of heartbreak.
Remember all that was gained while grieving all that was lost. What did you desire to do and be before shalom was shattered?
What did you believe about yourself—
When you were not wearing your mask of cynicism or false positivity, yes, when you believed in something greater than yourself?
This is the point of the beginning. The point of faith and remembrance, when doubt and truth have been united into hope and new life.
At times, dormant dreams and desire reborn nearly tear us apart.
Hope can be as painful as remembering.
If we choose to pay the high cost of hope— the resurrection of our unmet dreams, our stale desire— we then must shake hands with our shame, greet our cowardice, and face the relational betrayals that caused us to flee in the first place.
We must reclaim, rename, and live into our new identity.
Not living someone else’s scripts for our lives, no, we must salvage our own place in this divine drama.
We remember our name, not living in apology or entitlement, but from a confident stance as an image-bearer of God.
Remember the glory and horror of it all. Remember the innocent you, for you are far more beautiful than you realize.
To recapture our true names we must enter into the sacred holy space of remembrance.
