Say My Name
When was the last time someone called your name,
where the syllables flowed off of their tongue
with the same tenderness of a much-needed hug?
When was the last time someone called your name
as if Love was all that was displayed
on the screen of your soul’s caller ID?
When was the last time someone called your name
with no need attached to the request for your presence?
“Mommmm!”
”Babe…”
When was the last time someone called your name
without it being synonymously attached
to a role you were casted to play–
a caricature of a character,
always expected
to smile and nod and give?
Boss.
Sister.
Employee.
Friend.
When was the last time someone called your name
and you were summoned not for what you could do
but simply for who you are?
Motherhood is hard. It’s stretching beyond the limits of what you think your capacity can withstand. It’s testing beyond the comforts of the control you tricked yourself into believing you had.
To be needed this much, this often, this consistently…is overwhelming to say the least–and can even be damn-near depressing. It can feel like both blessing and burden, like deep connection yet incredibly lonely, like ultimate fulfillment yet totally draining, all at the same exact time.
Don’t get me wrong: I wouldn’t trade my children for the world. But I am also human. So just because I often feel spent from the wrestle of parenting doesn’t mean I’m at all willing to call it quits. I think most moms find themselves silently bullied by shame as they live between these tensions of being grateful for the load they’ve been given while also feeling crushed by the weight of it all.
Since leaving my job 3 years ago to take on the uncharted territory of stay-at-home motherhood, I have never felt more demanded and required of than now. And as I’ve been tending to the needs of my family and even friends, it didn’t hit me until recently that within this time, I have neglected my own–to the extent that it’s taken a whole lot of tears and talks with God, myself, my husband and my tribe to even begin to articulate what those needs are.
It was within this unraveling that a question struck my soul that has yet to leave since:
When is the last time someone called your name, without having need of anything from you?
The titles that often replace our names–husband/wife, father/mother, brother/sister, friend, boss, employee–are reflective of the roles we play, of what gives us purpose in the world. Yet in the daily repetitious rhythms of hearing ourselves addressed according to what we do, I wonder if that begins to play tricks on our soul + psyche, eventually convincing us that those titles are actually our identity–that what we do is actually who we are. And it doesn’t really help that the world we live in glorifies busyness and platforms and hustle and status and productivity, which can reinforce the lies in our head we’re struggling not to believe about ourselves.
Then, it hit me. There’s only one title that demands nothing from me, one name attached to the one I was given that has nothing to do with what I can give but everything to do with what I can freely receive:
Daughter.
“I will be a true Father to you, and you will be my beloved sons and daughters,” says the Lord Yahweh Almighty.”
I’ve come to realize that when I allow the demands of the day to constantly draw from me without having first given myself adequate space to be filled, I feel depleted far before the day has even fully begun. Is it the same for you?
You wake up. You reach for your phone–its cute screensaver overshadowed by the list of missed calls, text messages, emails and/or Instagram notifications. Time slips through your fingers as you scroll and type and double-tap, until you happen to glance at the clock to realize that if you don’t get moving now, you’re going to be late for work.
You jump out of bed, take a shower, dress, with no time to clean up the mess you made trying to find something to wear. You grab a quick lil’ something for breakfast (if you’re lucky), grab your keys, grab your purse, grab your jacket, and now you’re off to work–speeding all the way. And once you arrive, you’re confronted with the many demands of your job–quotas, goals and customers–and all of the other expected or unexpected things and people that expect you to show up for them.
My days of diaper changes, dish piles, enforcing time-outs, making pb+j’s, sleepy time cuddles and the other millions of things that require my attention, energy and affection often feel like I’m endlessly attempting to pour out of a well that has long been dry.
But when I wake and allow myself to be wanted rather than needed, to be poured into + refreshed, to receive love before ever being required to give it, come what may, I now am empowered to take on the needs that arise with strength, patience, gentleness and joy.
“Be still, and know that I am God,” Psalm 46:10 says. When I get still before God, when I make room for Him to be Him–my Heavenly Father, the One who is in complete control, the One who is working all together for my good–I am simultaneously giving myself space to be me, a daughter and child of God. And it is here, only here, that there are no to-do’s attached to my name, no strenuous lists of demands and impossible expectations of perfection, no requirement for me to have it all together.
Here, as daughter, my soul can gain every bit of love it so desperately craves, every bit of wisdom it yearns for to live well, and every bit of truth so it can live + love freely.
As much as I know in my head that spending time with God in worship, prayer and in reading + studying the Bible are all Christian-101, perhaps I haven’t been so careful not to treat these lifestyle essentials as just extra things to be checked off my list of tasks for the day. Perhaps I forgot these things are not robotic religious practices that somehow get me on God’s good side, but are actually heart-healing disciplines that do me a whole lot of good.
“Look with wonder at the depth of the Father’s marvelous love that he has lavished on us! He has called us and made us his very own beloved children.”
God is constantly calling our names, unwaveringly inviting us to sit with Him, hear from Him, spill on Him and be poured into by Him. His love for us ought to be the overflow from which we live our lives. But we do ourselves and our people a disservice when we’re living on empty.
If you find yourself feeling at the end of your rope, overwhelmed, worried, afraid, anxious, exhausted or all of the above, there may be many things you’re saying yes to, many needs you’re tending and showing up for, but chances are, your own heart is withering within it all.
Rather than trying to “find the time” to get alone with God, make the time. Open your Bible when you first wake up rather than Instagram. Talk to God + let Him talk back to you before someone gets the chance to call your name with a need.
Give yourself permission to experience the freedom–even if it’s but for a few minutes–of removing every hat, every title attached to your name to be nothing but you. Because that is more than enough.