I’ve been thinking about names a lot lately. Aren’t they interesting? As I think of my name, I think of the many iterations of me- of my name. And how different names take me back to different moments of who I am and who I was and even who I might be in the future.

I was born Katherine, Mary Penning, some 50+ years ago. My parents chose to use the name Kathy instead of Katherine. All through my grade school years, junior high and high school – I was Kathy Penning. Just saying those two words out loud makes me feel like a different person inside – makes me remember what those years felt like – the good the bad; the hard and the soft.

Kathy Penning is an interesting person. She was the youngest of four girls, always looking up to her sisters, sometimes feeling like always measuring up to her sisters. She was OK being alone. She played for hours out in the woods and by the lake, making mud pies and talking to her imaginary friends. Friendships didn’t come easy in the grade school years for Kathy. Just that name makes me think of a chunky blonde girl who learned to melt into the background so as not to draw attention to the people who liked to tease and taunt her. Home was her safe place.

She didn’t quite fit- but as she grew she found a few friends in her junior high and high school years who also didn’t quite fit – some for the right reasons and others for the wrong. And it was then that she came to start having a relationship with the most important person of her life. Jesus.

Music became her muse. “Singing is praying twice.” became her motto and she went off to college. This is where Kathy transformed into Katherine.

Katherine Penning went to university and, because there were many ‘Kathy’s’ on her floor, she decided to become Katherine. Her dad had always called her Katherine Mary, especially when he was really trying to get her attention in his low, deep, growly voice. That voice that today, she would give anything to hear one more time.

Katherine Penning didn’t quite fit into the college scene either. And yet she was comfortable, no longer trying to blend into the background, finding that her state of not fitting was actually the right state to be in. Katherine Penning sang a lot, she got on stage. She took risks and went and studied abroad for 10 months alone. Embarking on that plane not knowing a soul whom she would be with in her magical European adventure of art and renaissance.

Home was still her safe place, and now she brought home along with her in her heart as her companion on her journeys. And thankfully, her most important relationship was following her. No- strike that, He was leading her. She just didn’t know it. Thank you Jesus.

In her pursuit of trying to find the right fit, not really yet understanding that not fitting was exactly what she was supposed to be doing in the world, she switched schools again. And ended up at her third university within her five-year college experience. And it’s there that Katherine Penning was lead to the one who would make her Katherine Smith.

Thank you Jesus.

Katherine Smith had found the one that was intended for her. The fit to her unfitness in this world. The one who would help her continue to have adventures, not take every day too seriously, encourage her to be things she never thought she could be; a business person, a marketer, an entrepreneur, a boss and most of all a wife and mother. He made her childhood dreams and fantasies of true love made in the woods and by the lake, come true.

Isn’t it funny – all these names of mine – the history and how they all bring up different emotions and feelings of the parts of who I am and the journey that I’ve had.

Names mean a lot and carry a lot of the weight of our souls. The sweet mom to the twins who were once our foster kiddos- just recently went through a big process to change their names. They were born with the last name of their father, or bio dad. That name signified a lot of trauma, a lot of abuse, a lot of memories that she didn’t want associated with the beautiful white snow of her children. So now they will have her name, and they will carry with that name the hard work she did and still does every day, to overcome her drug addiction, to leave her abuser, to rehabilitate herself, to choose her children over the things that numbed her pain of her childhood and her life. To her, a name is more than typed letters on a legal document. Their name now signifies freedom, hard work, and unconditional love and hope for the future.

Thank you, Jesus.

I think of my children’s names, and how they have changed from the words I used to coo at them when I looked at them as little babies and toddlers. Now, I look at them as young adults and growing teens who are making their own choices. The sounds of their names no longer have a sing song lilt of infancy behind them, but more of a prideful boast of what great humans they have led themselves to be along this path of life that we have journeyed along with them. Thank you, Jesus.

And yet, how often do we actually say our names to ourselves. We hear other people say it on occasion- but actually, how often do actually we hear our name anymore? We get a text, but it rarely addresses us in a formal greeting. We see a friend and the greeting is “hey, how are you?” which usually isn’t accompanied by the statement of your actual name. I usually only hear my name when someone is trying to get my attention – maybe from across the room -maybe from another part of our house who is in need of something, maybe asking me to bring them a roll of toilet paper as they sit abandoned and waiting paperless in their current soiled state.

So take a minute and say your name to yourself. What does that make you feel? What memories, thoughts and emotions does your name conjure up?

Recently, I listened to a podcast talking about “Jesus of Nazareth.”

“Of Nazareth.” We say it so plainly because we’ve heard it so many times and immediately associate it with the Son of God – the second person of the trinity. And yet in the Gospels, it says when he was teaching in the nearby towns, people said of him “what good could come from Nazareth? ” To me Nazareth signifies a place where God and man united. Where God decided to take on our human-ness to save us. Nazareth is the template and breeding ground for family. It’s where Mary and Joseph played in the yard with a young boy named Jesus, who would save us, save us all. Jesus of Nazareth is a beautiful name and one that we would all be very different if hadn’t come into the world.

Names identify. Names claim, names recount our journey. In this podcast, they encouraged us, as daughters and sons of Christ Jesus – to consider saying in our own mind and claiming the name of Jesus. So I would no longer think of myself as just Katherine, or Katherine, Penning, or Kathy Penning, or Katherine Smith. I am all of these things, but most of all I am – Katherine of Jesus.

Katherine of Jesus.

Try it.

Say your name, and claim the one who loves you more than anything in this world. Use your nickname, use your maiden name, use the name that your grandpa called you in the summers when you visited. Think of these names in your head and add the name above all names as yours.

I am _______ of Jesus.

How does that feel? What story does that tell? This thought has taken up camp in my mind lately. Not just as an exercise or an experiment or a fun little quip at the end of this blog. This name – for me – has to stick. To mean something – to identify me. And above all, this name wraps me in a kind of love I can only glimpse here on earth – the most beautiful pure love of all. It is comfort to all ills that plague me, balm for the hurts of this world and the purest joy. It is me as my best self.

It’s mine to have if I want it – and you can too. Because of His perfect love, we can all claim it – today – as the most important iteration of our name that we will ever have. The name that will last forever.

Thank you, Jesus.