Now The Name Is Everywhere

In August it was hers.

She had found it somewhere quiet, and had carried it for eleven months, and had said it to two people, and it had that particular feeling a private thing has: that nobody else has thought of this.

And then something happened that had nothing to do with her, and now it is on a chart, and in a headline, and three people at her own church have mentioned it in two weeks as a name they like.

And she is not upset with anybody, because there is nobody. Not a cousin, not a friend, not one person who could have known.

The world took it, which is not a thing a person can be angry at.

I want to describe the particular shape of this loss, because it is not the same as the others on this row and it deserves its own account.

What she has lost is not the name. Nobody can stop her using it and she knows that.

What she has lost is the privateness. The sense of having found something. The quiet pleasure of holding a word nobody else had noticed, which is a real pleasure and was a real part of the eleven months.

And that is gone and it is not coming back, and it went without anybody doing anything.

Be still, and know that I am God

There is a verse in Psalm 46 that has been printed on a great many objects and is much sterner than the objects suggest.

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. (Psalm 46:10, King James Version)

You are being told to stop moving rather than to feel better, and Psalm 46:10 has never once been an invitation to relax. The written word is an instruction to cease, given in a psalm full of noise and shaking, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes it possible in somebody whose head has been going since the summer.

Look at the psalm around it. Mountains carried into the sea. Waters roaring. Nations raging. It is one of the loudest passages there is, and the instruction in the middle of it is: be still.

Not: the noise will stop. The noise is described in detail and the instruction is given anyway.

That is exactly right for this, because the name is not going to become private again. The chart will not un-happen. And the instruction is not about the noise going away.

You have been waiting for the noise to stop before you could settle, and Scripture gives the instruction in the middle of the roaring. Psalm 46 has the earth being removed and says be still in the same breath, and the Spirit of God is what makes that possible while everything is still loud.

What was actually lost

Now the practical part, and it starts with an honest inventory.

The word is intact. Every letter of it. Nothing has been taken out of it. What has gone is the feeling of exclusivity, and it is worth being honest about that, because it is a real thing and it was genuinely part of the pleasure.

But here is the question underneath, and it is uncomfortable and worth asking gently: how much of the loving was the finding?

Some of it, honestly. Some of it always is. And the part that was the finding cannot be recovered, and the part that was the word itself is entirely untouched.

You are permitted to have loved the finding too, and Psalm 46 has never once required a pure reason for loving a thing. The Holy Spirit is the one who lets an honest inventory be taken without shame, and the written word gives an instruction in the middle of an earthquake rather than an audit.

You are able to tell those two apart, and no verse anywhere made a thing less good for being widely known. Psalm 46:10 has God saying He will be exalted among the nations, which is the least private outcome imaginable, and the Holy Spirit is what separates a word from the pleasure of having found it.

And there is something worth saying about the direction of that verse, because it cuts against the whole instinct here.

I will be exalted among the heathen. Among everybody. The psalm's idea of a good outcome is a thing becoming known everywhere, not a thing being kept.

That does not mean her feeling is wrong. It means the instinct that widely known equals diminished is not one that Scripture shares anywhere.

You have been treating public as spoiled, and the written word treats being known everywhere as the good end. Psalm 46 says I will be exalted in the earth, and the Spirit of God is what turns an instinct over in somebody.

Say it once, and then say it again

So here is the assignment on this row, with one change.

Say the lost name out loud once, then put it away and say a new one.

Do both. And then, if it is still the name you love, pick it back up.

That is unusual on this row and it is right here, because nothing was actually taken. The exercise is for the privateness, which does need to be put down. The word does not.

You are able to grieve the finding and keep the word, and Psalm 46:10 has never once required a thing to be exclusive in order to be good. The Holy Spirit is present when somebody puts down a feeling and keeps a name, and the written word is spoken over a shaking earth.

And here is what makes that possible, and it is the last thing.

In about two years, that name will mean her daughter. Entirely. The chart will be four years out of date and nobody will think about it, and the eleven months of private carrying will be a thing she remembers rather than a thing she has lost.

The publicness is a season. The word is not.

You are looking at a season and calling it a theft, and Scripture puts the stillness in the middle of the roaring rather than after it. Psalm 46 does not wait for quiet, and the Spirit of God is with a woman saying it out loud today.