I Will Change Your Name
Over to the left you'll see a sampling of the blogs on my reader. This is only a sampling as I have far too many to post here, and some I don't feel as comfortable "outing" even to my small audience without permission first. One you will find listed there is Holy Experience. Ann's blog has been a great inspiration to me, and I encourage you to check it out for yourself. Today she had posted a youtube, and I clicked on it without any expectation of what the lady in the video holding the guitar was going to sing. When the familiar words drifted through the speakers, my eyes misted in remembrance and thanks. She sang the chorus, "I Will Change Your Name." I've copied and pasted the lyrics below:
I will change your name
You shall no longer be called
Wounded, Outcast, Lonely or Afraid
I will change your name
Your new name shall be
Confidence, Joyfulness,
Overcoming one,
Faithfulness, friend of God,
One who seeks my face.
~D.J. Butler
~D.J. Butler
This song was my anthem for a long time. The words seared my heart upon first hearing it. Wounded, Outcast, Lonely and Afraid had all been fitting names for me in my teens. This blog is named from an action of the main character in one of my favorite books--Hinds' Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard. That character's name is Much Afraid, and I believe one reason that book resonated with me so is that I too have been Much Afraid. As a young girl, I was painfully shy and had a virtually no self-confidence. I was what you'd describe as a "nervous Nellie."
It never occured to me at the time that although I loved and knew God, I had never fully surrendered my life to Him. I was still trying to be in charge, in control. The idea of giving that control over to Him terrified me. How foolish that seems now, for when I did surrender that death-grip I had on my life, He breathed a freedom into it that I had never experienced before. He changed my name.
It never occured to me at the time that although I loved and knew God, I had never fully surrendered my life to Him. I was still trying to be in charge, in control. The idea of giving that control over to Him terrified me. How foolish that seems now, for when I did surrender that death-grip I had on my life, He breathed a freedom into it that I had never experienced before. He changed my name.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
~2 Corinthians 5:17
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