"I have called you by name..."

Sometimes he would wake up cranky.  Sometimes he would get mad at us for refusing to let him have some toy or treat that he really wanted.  He would cry and whenever we said his name, he would declare, “I not Carter!”  If we asked, “What is your name?” He would answer, “No! Not Carter!”  We would ask him if he was “Guo-Ran,” (his Chinese name) and he would say, “No!”  This would go on for however long it took us to turn his mood around and the only thing to do was hold him and say, “I’m your mommy.  You are my baby.”  Inevitably, he would find something funny that made him laugh and would then say, “Hi, Mommy! I Carter!”

These moments of toddler identity crisis were gut wrenching for me.   They spoke of the ongoing battle that must have been raging in his little heart, just beneath the surface of his normally joyful personality.  His inner struggle to put the pieces of himself back together; to understand his own place in the world and in our family.

There is a lot of debate within the international adoption community about names.  Before we found Carter, we had planned to incorporate our child’s Chinese name into his new name.  However, we found out that most abandoned children in China are left with no identifying information and are given names chosen by their orphanage director.  Their last name is often based on the name of their city and first names are commonly patriotic words.  Carter’s name, for example, meant “Strong Country.”  The Chinese government recently passed a law forbidding this type of naming system because, as you can imagine, a generation of orphaned children are growing up with stigmatizing names that clearly label them as an abandoned child.  So, we intentionally did not include Carter’s orphanage name in his new name.  When we adopted him, he became Carter Jack Allen.  Carter, the name chosen by his sister and brother, and Jack, for his grandfather.  At first, we called him Guo-Ran, then Guo-Ran-Carter, and eventually just Carter.

But he has another name.  The one his birth parents chose.  The one his birth mother probably whispered out loud before he was born.  The one he heard cooed over his tiny newborn face during the time before.  The time before he was left.  The time before he was found by strangers and no one knew his name.  (All the unknowns of this time before will probably always haunt me.)

Sometimes I wonder if he remembers it.  If he knows deep in his heart that he had a different name in that time before.  I wanted to cry, too, during those meltdowns, when he would scream, “I not Carter! I not Guo-ran!”   I wish I knew the name she had given this beautiful boy of ours, that mother from the time before.

I think we all have similar moments of identity crisis.

God has called us each by name.  We have been adopted as sons and daughters of God.  We have been given new names.  True names.

Beloved.  Chosen.  Daughter.  Son.  Redeemed One.

When we are happy and things are going well, we accept these names as our own.  But when we are hurt and broken, we claim they are not true.  We accept the other names that have been given to us.  Names we give ourselves.  Orphan names.

Lazy.  Ugly.  Failure.  Weak.  Unwanted.  Unloved.

To God we must seem a lot like a raging toddler.  “I am not Chosen!”  and “I am not Beloved!”  God is infinitely more patient than we know.  Even so, I think it must hurt His heart to hear us deny His love over and over again.

Your true name was a song whispered over you by God’s own self on the day you were born.  Your true name was known before time began.  It isn’t a secret.  It isn’t a mystery.   Your true name is etched in a manger and carved into a cross.  It is the very reason why God would leave the glory of heaven and enter into the universe as a displaced, minority, refugee child with kings and kingdoms hell bent on his destruction.  Your true name is the reason why your heart still cries out for justice when you see innocent life destroyed.  Your true name is yours, whether you accept it or not...

Beloved. Chosen.  Daughter.  Son.  Redeemed One.

It is through grace that we have been renamed  Beloved.  Grace allows us to hear our name, to know that we are Chosen and Redeemed.  But it isn’t enough for us to just hear.  Eventually, faith requires that we claim our new identity and accept it as truth.  Faith requires action on our part and the single most faithful thing we can do is embrace who we have been called to be without doubt or fear.  God wants to hear us say-

“I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine…”

When I picked up Carter from preschool this week, there was a group of older children passing us in the hallway.  They all saw Carter and said, “Look, it’s Carter! You’re so cute! Hey Car-Car!”

Carter looked at them and said in his most serious voice, “I NOT Car-Car!  I Carter Allen! This is Mommy Allen!!”  Then he pointed to a nativity scene on the wall and said,  “And that’s Bee-bee Jesus!”

I think that maybe, he’s figured it out.