Sticks and Stones

 

It’s not true.

Names can damage you deeper than just a few skin scars and offset bones. We’ve all been through playground digs and names that stuck like flung mud. For some the name calling can start to define how we think of ourselves and affect our self-esteem. Sometimes the anticipation is crippling, as we wait for the next insult to blow our way, and we’d almost welcome the sticks and stones, for some relief!

We can get labelled, and it sticks out larger than the name tag mum has sown into your coat (embarrassing enough, right?). Then all too easily the label becomes who we are. Not just as others see us either, but as we think of ourselves, and it becomes a tag we are burdened with even in our deeper selves.

In the cruel economy of the classroom, these kinds of names exclude us, and mark us for ridicule. They can shadow us into adulthood as well, as we have learned to think of ourselves as we think others see us.

We can easily try to minimise the hurt with talk of toughening up or getting over it. Especially if we’ve never been on the receiving end ourselves.

But interestingly Jesus doesn’t laugh this off. Wherever there is human hurt, he finds it no laughing matter. He’s been through it – mocked, ridiculed and spat upon.

As Christian believers we’re told in Revelation 2:17 that ultimately it will be what God calls us that counts. One thing we can know with certainity is that His way is to bless, not curse.

‘I’ll also give you a smooth stone inscribed with your new name, your secret new name.’

We are called something amazing by God. What that new name is we don’t yet know. It may well be Son or Daughter of the Living God. It will be a name that builds us up. A name that includes us, and the stone is our entry ticket.

Knowing we’re accepted and beautifully named we can see a way out from under the past. We can stand tall in the present, secure in the future.