I started cutting after my senior year of high school. I was tired of feeling alone. I didn’t let anyone in. I put on a mask of happiness, love, Christianity, and joy. You could have asked anyone at my church, my friends from school and even my parents and they would have told you that I was the “perfect Christian girl.” I mean I didn’t smoke, drink, or do drugs. I went on missions trips, went to youth group, and went to church camp every summer.

Deep inside I knew I was missing something; I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

I was yearning for love, but I was looking in the wrong places. I looked to the people of this world to find my joy and happiness and acceptance, and when I didn’t find it…

I struggled with EDNOS which is an eating disorder that isn’t classified as anorexia or bulimia, though it contains parts of both. I starved and if I ate, it didn’t stay down for long. I considered myself ugly and fat and unlovable. I had friends, but none that were really close that I really trusted. Eventually I just started blaming myself for anything and everything. That would be when I started to cut. If I cut a word into myself, it was ugly. I hated my appearance.

It’s really hard to explain exactly why I cut because honestly I don’t have to words to say how I was feeling. I cut really deep a couple times and realized I should probably stop, so for a while I did. Then I relapsed.

I had a guy friend that I shared a lot with. He helped me feel needed, but he took advantage of the situation and raped me. I felt completely hopeless and alone. I was so angry at myself for being there and not stopping him.

I had a friend that called me the night I relapsed with cutting just to make sure I was alright. I hadn’t told him anything had happened. The Holy Spirit used him to lead me to the Lord.

My Father who loves me unconditionally! He has helped me so so so much to see just how blessed I am and that I am free!

I still feel the need to cut at times, and to be honest, I have relapsed since then. What I really need is to fully embrace His forgiveness; I just haven’t yet. But I know that God’s got me. He will protect me and he cares about me! I’m His child and He will never leave me!

The first time I was called a slut I was 12. 

I am not sure why they called me that. I wasn’t flirtatious and I still looked like a little girl.  At 14 my sister called me a whore because some boy like me instead of her.  But I stayed pure. 

At 20 I married my husband and I were both virgins. But those names would not go away. I always wondered if that was what I really was. Then one day a few years later, something horrible happened. 

I blamed myself. 

I felt what everyone was saying about me was true.  After all if I wasn’t a slut and a whore, it would never have happened to me.  I never told anyone for 7 years. When I did finally tell, my husband was wonderful. However, our pastor didn’t believe me. Even though the man who victimized me had victimized others.  He told me I was to blame.

They ostracized our family. 

I lost all of my friends.

Even my sister said, “She is just my sister, but you are my pastor.”

The rejection was horrific. We finally moved away from the small town.  Yet, the Lord was faithful. I began working for a ministry that helped to heal me.  Yet, my self-esteem sank.  I could not trust people. I kept men and women at arms length. I felt betrayed that God would allow such a horrible thing to happen to me. I kept him at arms length.

But He refused to let me go. He sent wonderful people into my life.  He slowly drew me back to Him.

Then tonight I discovered, I was never a slut and never a whore. These were lies. That is not who I am. Christ knows who I am. He gave me the name Beloved. The test gave me the name Washed. 

I am His Beloved and He has Washed me from from the filth I thought was me. He has known all along that was never me. 

He knew.  He loved me, even when I didn’t believe He loved me. I am no longer a victim. I am no longer in prison. He knows my name. He knows my heart. He knows who and what I am…clean and loved.

PERSON 1- I have been struggling with my identity in Christ for a while now. Our current situation has left me without purpose, or so it feels. It feels as though I am at a complete standstill and I am struggling to find purpose. We miscarried early in the summer, we are looking for a new home while living with friends because of an ugly family battle over a house that was left behind after the death of my mother. It seems that everything that I was used to is now turned on it’s head.

PERSON 2 – I spent years struggling in sexual addiction, and I am on the other side at this point.  God has done amazing things in my life, but I still find myself lost in shame over my past.  I have let it go and moved on countless times, but I still come back to that place where my guilt overwhelms me.  I know God has forgiven me, but I can’t forgive myself all the time.   Who I was is still haunting who I am, and I can’t seem to shake it. 

PERSON 3 – My husband has left, my children have graduated from college, and I am alone.  I am trying to figure out who I am by myself, and what God in mind for the second half of my life.

God has been after me, trying to give me my name for so long, but I’ve been too stubborn. Instead I’ve clung to unsatisfying  names that others bestow upon me or that I grasp at on my own. I’ve tried to run from those names, but without my TRUE name to replace them, I always return.

These names are the faults, shortcomings, and failures that others see in me and the failure, inadequacies, and struggles that I try to hide and cover. Complaining, self-loathing, depressed, afraid, angry, mean, failure, trash. All of these, and so many more that I’m not yet brave enough to share here. It’s better to have a horrible identity, than no identity at all. But these names don’t offer healing.

Through a question in the middle of the night, a postcard in a bookstore, a facebook connection, and a gracious gesture from a person that I have never met, but I am honored to know even the least bit now, I am seeing how God has been pursuing me with this for so long. I have a name, my TRUE name.

I am hesitant to say I know it, although I believe I do. It is beautiful, but if I try to look at it from the perspective of what I am capable of doing on my own, it is daunting. Only through God’s gracious gift of His Son and His continuing work and strength in a person so fallen, will I ever truly be able to embody this beautiful name: REDEEMED.

Did you ever look at all of the meanings of the word redeem? To buy or pay off; to buy back; to recover by payment; to exchange for money or goods; to discharge or fulfill (a promise); make amends for, offset; to obtain the release or restoration of, as from captivity, by paying a ransom.

Do you know what the opposite of REDEEMED is?

ABANDONED.

If any of you know me, truly know me, you know that I have felt abandoned and have been abandoned in various ways. I have felt the weight of that abandonment. For a long time it led me to question whether or not God really cared for me at all. I truly believed that God existed. I believed wholeheartedly that God loved other people. But, somehow, that God simply couldn’t love me, not if He really knew me the way everyone insisted He did.

If He knew my facade, maybe He could love me, but not if He truly knew all of the dirt. Then during my first semester of sophomore year, while in my Exploring the Bible class, God allowed me to hear. I didn’t learn His name for me that day, but I did find my name for Him.

Genesis 16:13- “You are the God who sees me.”

In the desert, alone, running away after being mistreated by her master for bragging up the fact that she was pregnant, God met Hagar. He saw her. He knew what she had done, He knew what Sarai had done, He knew that she was pregnant and not with the child He had promised Abram. But He SAW her. He comforted her and promised that her son would also become a father of a nation.

He saw her. He knew her. He comforted her. EL ROI- the God who sees me.This name impacted me so much that I now wear this reminder permanently in black ink on my wrist.

I have my name for God. I have His name for me. It is a large name to live up to. In fact, there is no way to embody that name on my own. God is the only one capable of getting me there and I know it’s going to be a long and hard journey.

Thank you, to everyone that God has been using in my life, and continues to use in my life, to bring me to the place of knowing my SECRET NAME.

Some of this might be confusing to some of you. I had never thought of such a thing as a secret name before, even though it’s mentioned in the Bible. Not to mention the fact that I’ve been trying to carve out a name for myself for years, not knowing the whole time I was merely seeking something to fill the gap that was meant for true name.

Anyway, this might clear a little bit up and maybe, if you don’t already know God’s name for you, begin the journey of finding it. 🙂 www.yoursecretname.com

My new life in Christ only started a year ago.  I had plenty of time to taste what this world has to offer and I must say until 12 months ago it was exactly what I was looking for.  In my younger years I grew up in a “Christian” home.  Church every Sunday, bible study every weekday. Church was just another place for my parents to be parents and me to be a kid.  My father used to go door to door preaching the urgency of salvation to those he felt Christ was leading him to, and my mother was right there with him sharing the Lords work.  My parents were very Godly people.

When I was a teenager my father became very “ill”.  He injured his back severely and was heavily medicated for years.  These medications were not your typical medications. He was given oxycotin, methadone, and every other pain medication.  When you get on these types of medications there are very serious side effects. My father began to psychoanalyze everything he came in contact with. He was in and out of hospitals all the time.  He began to question his faith and the existence of God himself. 

My entire teenage years I was obligated to explore what life really had to offer.  I did as I pleased. Because of my father’s illness God was certainly not an option. I was angry that He let one of his servants suffer.

I chose a path of release. Drugs.

Drugs.

Just the word makes my back tighten up and a shivers down my spine.  Drugs were my sweet escape.  I started to smoke pot when I was about 15 until I got out of high school.  I drank from time to time but Mary Jane was all I needed. I went off to college at the university of Ohio State Mansfield after high school with one thing on my mind….freedom. 

And it was then I discovered alcohol.  Weed just wasn’t cutting it anymore, and alcohol was cheaper and I found I had what I thought was a gift at the time of “chugging” or slamming beer. Later I find out it wasn’t much of a talent at all more or less a prerequisite to vomiting.  After one year in college I flunked out to due to not attending classes or tests.

I worked at a pizza place for a bit just to make some cash for my booze and pot.  I then enrolled at a community college in Toledo and moved in with 3 of my stoner buddies right on Toledo’s campus.  I was on cloud 9. 

It was in Toledo that I learned of my true love. 

Cocaine.

My life was now in surrender to it.  At first it was one line or two a week just for fun.  I was a social snorter I guess you could call it.  But with cocaine it doesn’t stop there, because when you run out you must find more.  It’s your oxygen; it’s the air you breathe.  And once you get on cocaine there is no turning back. Next it was vicodins methadone, oxys, percocets, flexerils, darvecets… anything I could get my hands on that could send that rush to my brain.

My body and mind stop taking such a likeness to what I was doing to myself.  My fixes turned into hallucinations, my drags turned into anxiety attacks, and my breaths turned into gasps for life.  I then had realized I was now under total control of the product I built my life around.  I would lie in bed for hours wondering how I was breathing, why was I here what was life.  I began to analyze things like my father did and the shear thought of death made me puke.  Where was I going what could I do?  I then decided to quit cold turkey.  When they tell you it takes 3 days, they lied. 

For 6 months straight I suffered from manic depression and suicidal thoughts….a few failed attempts made me realize I wasn’t even worth trying to kill myself because the simple thought of “what’s next” scared me more than the thought of a gun to my head.  I was in my own personal hell.  I couldn’t talk, sleep, or eat.  I weighed 200lbs at the beginning of that year and by this time I weighed merely 150.  And of course the so called friends I had with me didn’t seem to notice, the only thing they saw was “hey less people to share with”. 

I was ready to die.

I have a brother, his name is Ben and he went through a few similar things but he got “saved” by God. At this time that was just kind of funny to me.  Saved? From what his sins? Good luck with that.  But through everything Ben went through he was always smiling always so content and that really made me mad.  Here I was suffering and he was totally fine because some invisible son of God saved his soul. 

Ben always used to tell me about Christ and the things he did. He ensured me that if I came to church and just listened it wouldn’t hurt, it may even save my life.  So I did.

I went to church with him and his wife Emily, and while I was there I felt free again, the restrictions were off and I could breathe. I could look up into the sky and think I’m ok.  That’s all I wanted, I didn’t want to be scared anymore, and I wanted my life of fear and anxiety gone. 

My only problem was that I wondered, “Where is the proof?” 

I continued to go to church; I quit everything I was doing.  No more sex, drugs, beer, and even cigarettes. I went every Sunday twice and Wednesday night… Every service they had to offer.  And I even prayed a few times for God to heal me.  But nothing…….I  wasn’t being healed.

About 3 month into going to church one night we had a camp fire at the pastor’s house and we were sitting around the fire singing and having a good time when I saw my brother Ben venting about work.  I asked him what was wrong and he said “I need a cigarette”. 

Ben was a smoker but he promised me he would quit if I came to church. I told Ben “you promised me Ben, I gave up a life of sin for you so you can give up this”.  I love Ben so much and was so thankful for him that I couldn’t stand to see him kill himself that way. 

Disregarding my efforts to talk him out of his sweet surrender he decided to light one up.  At that very moment I walked away in anger, furious at my brother’s selfishness.  But within seconds I found myself crying like I did in the days of my withdrawal, lashing out at the evil around me. 

I looked up to the sky and said “this is for whoever my brother praises day in and day out, to the one he calls his father, keep my brother safe”. 

And after that 3 second prayer I walked back to Ben, his cigarette was gone.  Now those of you who do smoke  know that a cigarette takes more than 30 secs to smoke, but his was gone, nowhere to be found. I asked him “did you need one so made that you smoked it that fast”.  He said with a tear in his eye. .. “no Dane, I took one breathe of it and felt so convicted it made me sick, I threw it in the fire”. 

I walked away in disbelief…”did God just do that?” 

It finally hit me, I prayed my first True prayer, I KNEW God would care for him because he trusted in him and I did as well.  I prayed not for me but for someone I loved.  I called out to Ben away from the fire and I said, its time….. We gathered together in a circle I could feel the arms lifting me up.  I asked for forgiveness …… I was free. 

My depression is gone, I have a new life.  Someone to live for and serve.  My journey has just begun and only gets better.  This past year has been greater than any moments in my life combined.  I am now in a praise and worship group. I helped teach the teens and just got married to the love of my life. God sure does bless those who trust in his name.

Thank you for letting me share my story, a lot of tears of joy and sadness were laid out writing this but I have to give glory to God for those tears and giving me my TRUE name.  FULFILLED

But those who trust in the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up on wings as eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31

On Sunday night I was trying to fall asleep and couldn’t. Now, I grew up in a church where God speaks…but mostly, if not only, through the Bible and the preaching of His Word. So I was very skeptical about what happened next.

While I was lying there a question came into my mind as clearly as if someone had spoken it to me:

Are you living up to your name?

At first I was confused. The only meaning I’ve ever found for my name is aborigines and it means “boomerang.” It’s a cool meaning, but I’m not really sure how one lives up to such a name. At the recollection of the meaning of my name, I cynically and sarcastically thought, “Oh yeah, no matter how many times people try to throw me away, I just keep on coming back!”

But then the thought came again:

Are you living up to your name?

It got me thinking and I came to a conclusion. If my name is meant to identify me, if my name is something that is supposed to say who I am, then I don’t even know my name. That bothered me. So I prayed:

If this is a question from you God, I need you to tell me what my name is because I don’t think I even know it.

I’ve been thinking about it and waiting for an answer. I tried to think of what the question could mean, but I didn’t want to tell anyone about the question because, to be honest, I thought it sounded kind of crazy.

Yesterday, I saw a postcard in the local bookstore that read, “Your Secret Name: Discovering who God created you to be.” I’m pretty sure my friends thought I had lost my mind with the way I reacted to it.

I have been looking on the “test” portion of the book’s site and have discovered so many of the names that the world has given me or that I have claimed for myself: CUTTER, BURDENED, UNPROTECTED, UNLOVED, ALONE.  My whole story is a long one that traverses many hurts done by a family hiding behind happy plastic church masks and those who, long ago, I attempted to open up to about what really went on in that house. But I have found so many truths already to counter the false names that I have let others give me and that I have claimed for myself.

I am continuing the search for my name and I cannot wait to see what else God is going to do as others begin searching for their names too. I’m already amazed by the stories I’m reading on the book’s site.

Thanks for letting God use you!

I listened to your radio interview on the Chris Fabry show last week.  After listening, I wanted to see what might my Secret Name on a white stone name might be.

Nervously, I waited about a week and then I visited your website.I can’t believe what happened.

My  37 year-old daughter hasn’t spoken to me  or let me see my new grandchild for over a year now. It has been very painful and hurtful. She says she is a Christian.

I am a born again child of God. God has worked so many truths in my life in the last years. God spoke a verse to me the day my daughter was so cruel to me…Psalm 46:10. I keep saying that verse over and over as the days wear on and Satan attacks me.

I decided to visit your site and see my new name. I reflected on what my Given Name is, and I decided that the world has given me the name TROUBLED. I clicked on it and the new name CALM came up.

The amazing part is that the verse listed with that new name is Psalm 46:10!

Be still and know I am God.

Cold chills ran up and down and I strated to cry because God is so good to me.

I wanted you to know how God used you and Chris on the radio. With great love for you I am sharing this. I learn every day how God is taking care of me and educating me about His Word.

Thank you!

I was saved as a Senior in High School in December of 1986.  I had been involved in the occult and had seen (and heard) many strange things.  Over Christmas break, I picked up a rather thick commentary on the Book of Revelation, and read the entire thing.  I accepted Christ as my Savior when I read Revelation 21:21.  Thereafter, my entire life changed, and even though I didn’t know anything about going to church, I read the Bible voraciously.

That summer, I was sitting in the driveway, leaning against the garage door, when the Lord spoke to me very powerfully the words of Haggai 2:23:

In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, will I take thee, O Zerubbabel, my servant, the son of Shealtiel, saith the LORD, and will make thee as a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the LORD of hosts.

I read the words but they were aimed DIRECTLY AT ME.  I was in shock.  I closed up the Bible, and refused to even look into it any further for over a year; it took me about 5 years before I could mention it to anyone else.

I eventually studied it out, and found that the name ‘Zerubbabel’ means (as far as they can tell), ‘scattered in Babylon.’  Big whoop, huh?

I continued to look for answers.  Eventually, the Lord spoke to me through Zechariah 4:7:

Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it.

This verse has greatly shaped my life as I have studied God’s Grace and found freedom from religion, etc. But I still didn’t understand.  Why this name?  Why “scattered in Babylon”?

Last month, 25 years after the first revelation of this name, I went on a missions trip to Azerbaijan.  The week before we left, our team leader told us that the ‘book for the trip’ was to be Haggai; the missionary in Azerbaijan had chosen this as the source for our devotions while we were there.  My ears perked up; I knew something else was going to be revealed.  While in Azerbaijan, the Lord showed me that Zerubbabel’s mother had named him based on her current conditions, not based on what God could do in his life. Zerubbabel was NOT scattered, nor was he in Babylon!  He was in Jerusalem building the Temple!  (Sometimes the labels other people give us are completely wrong!)

Today, I realize that this is a church planter’s name.  ‘My birth name, Christopher’, means ‘one who bears Christ,’ like an evangelist, but ‘Zerubbabel’ is the name of a man who lays the foundation of a new work for God.  And he finishes it by God’s GRACE.

I look forward to seeing how God continues to unfold this name in my life.  It is extremely humbling to tell this story, and I feel very vulnerable sharing it, but I think it may help others.

My name before I came to Christ was mistake and unwanted. 

Most of my life has been marked with abandonment, mistreatment, and disowning, first from my parents and then from many others who were supposed to love me. Most of my life I have felt there was something wrong with me, that I did not fit in.

From the time I was a baby I was abandoned, pawned off on others. Once my parent went looking for a new place to live and left me with a baby sister for nearly 6 months.  Events such as this have followed me through out my young life and I learned early my name was mistake and unwanted. Hurt and pain followed me and fear was my constant companion.

When I was 14 I came to live with people who introduced me to the name of Jesus. The told me about going to hell, and I did not want that. So alone in a room I bowed my head and asked Jesus to save me. Nothing special happened, time passed and I forgot about the whole event.

When I was in my late 30’s a minister came to our home looking for my husband–intending to instruct him about salvation. My husband was not home. The minister and I talked. In our conversation he asked me if I ever read the bible. I said no. After a few more questions, he learned I was saved. From that moment, my journey with God began again.

My journey has not been an easy on. Today I have learned my name is no longer mistake or unwanted. Today I learned that my name is WONDERFULLY MADE. The Lord says he knew me in the inner secret places where he created me. He made me with His purpose in mind. He used my mother as a place to form me and whether she wanted me that was not important to the Lord. God knew He wanted me.

Today I am learning what it means to be WONDERFULY MADE. I praise God for His mercy.

Before I close my story I would like to share to dream the Lord gave over 40 years ago. This dream is a real today as it was then. When I dreamed this dream I did not know what it meant, but it made me feel so loved, I would like to share with you.

I must have been 13 years old. My dream was about being in a group of girls, none of which liked me. They where making fun of me and left me all alone. I was so frightened I started to cry. All of a sudden a large hand came down around me and gently scooped me up. At first I was frightened. The giant attached to the hand seemed so friendly, but He never said a thing. He gently lifted me into a castle with many rooms.

He set me down gracefully. There in the middle of the floor was a big fire and food to eat and place to sleep. I heard the gentle giant say, “Don’t be afraid I will protect you, this is your new home.”

I felt the safest I had ever felt. I felt the warm love of someone who thought me to be important. I was then awakened by my father. It was time to get up for school. I was very upset and wanted to go back to sleep, but I couldn’t. Many years later when I came to Christ, the words of Christ came to me. “I go away and make a place for you, a place that has many rooms.” I knew then that my dream was God showing me that He loves me. God said, “I will care for you, fear not, you are WONDERFULLY MADE. You are my daughter.”

 Blessings.

-O Ronning