"Will remembering that God knows and loves me give me back my joy?"

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Isaiah 43:1-2 "…I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee."

I couldn’t believe my ears when my husband told my Mom we were going to name our baby after her. No way could we back out of that one! However, Margie is a pretty name so it could have been worse. And then it did…get worse, I mean…when his mother asked if we had chosen a name. That’s how a child who was supposed to be named Laurie Anne ended up as Marjorie Ethel.

Whether we love or hate our names, those names are one of the first things babies learn to say. Our names never become less important to us either. If you doubt that, think back to the last time someone mispronounced your name. And customer service reps are trained to use your name several times in a conversation. It helps to remind the customer that the company values them.

With a houseful of kids and sometimes their friends as well, I often spoke to them as a group as in, “Hey kids…dinner’s ready,” or “Y’all need to come in and do that homework.” But when I called them by their individual names, it was because they belonged to me and I wanted them to listen up. 

That’s what God was saying to Israel in Isaiah 43:1, and it’s just as true about us. We don’t serve a distant or disinterested God. He is a personal God, who loves and cherishes us and who is vitally interested and involved in every part of our lives. Isaiah 43:1 says He calls us by our name because we are His. 

It’s easy to forget God cares when we’re in the middle of a crisis, when our hearts are broken, when our world has fallen down around us, when it looks like our prodigal will never come home. If you’re like me, you sometimes look at your circumstances and wonder whether God knows or cares what you’re going through. 

My friend Sandra, devastated by the loss of her son, asked some of those same questions especially during that first year. She finally told the Lord, “You promised You would never forsake me! But You’re not here, and my son is gone!” She says the Holy Spirit gently touched her broken heart and whispered, “Who do you think gives you the strength to get out of bed each day?”

I don’t know what you’re going through right now or the burdens you have carried for so long. But whatever they are, I can assure you that Christ has “…borne [your] griefs, and carried [your] sorrows...” (Isa 53:4) When we’re going through those trials, He doesn’t abandon us to do them on our own. He walks every step of the way with us. 

Maybe, like Sandra, you only have the strength to get out of bed today. That’s ok. Maybe the best you can do is to keep putting one foot in front of the other and refuse to quit. That’s ok too. But in the bad times, reminding ourselves there’s a personal God who calls us by our name and walks through the waters with us can, even in our sorrow, give us back our joy.

Challenge for Today: What might happen if we, just for today, reminded ourselves that God calls us by our name because we are His?