I have written your name...

Do you ever have one of those moments where you immediately wish you could bring back what you just said, because not only did the sentence trip and stumble off your tongue, but because it also sounded uber stupid? I had one of those moments last Thursday. In a group of people I only kind of sort of know, I blurted out my teenage fears and frustrations. After I said it, that little voice of myself in my head started screaming "What did you just do?!" And I sat back and said to my little voice, "I know, I know. Agh. I really really didn't need to share that. I had thought I was over all of that baggage from conformation. Really, where did that come from?" To this day, I still don't really know where my little burst of awkwardness came from.

Yes, I am frustrated with my church. Yes, I am sick of the clique like small groups in my church. Yes, I am beyond frustration with people in our Praise and Worship Team. (See, they forget about the team part. and the music is all the same level of blah. I digress.) Yes, I am looking for Christian fellowship where I'm not told I'm going to hell. And yes, I wish people would use my first name in our church. I'm sick of being Alana, the Kielley's, Kielley, and Your Dad's the Bongo Player. It just hurts my core that I have been in that church for 11 years now, with the PWT for a good 9, and this summer will be my 10th year of teaching VBS, and I'm still nameless. Really? I'm a participating member, I was confirmed, I sing/play in the cantata and the Sunday's I'm at church. What more do I have to do? And then I got thinking. I was leafing through my old Scripture notebook, and there in the back was a little message/blurb I had been writing. It revolved around Isaiah, chapter 49.

"Sing out, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth, break forth into song, you mountains. For the LORD comforts his people and shows mercy to his afflicted. But Zion said, 'The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.' Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you. See, upon the palms of my hands I have written your name;"

Take a look at your hands for me. See all the lines and groves, how intricate, how amazing that your fingerprint is like no others'. And God has all of our names written upon His palms. Upon His hands are the names of all who have come, all who are, and all who have yet to come.

God uses my first name. It is there, written upon His hand, He will never forget me. So when I grumble about where I am in my church, it doesn't matter, because the One who loves me, loves me enough to have written my name upon His palm, and it is from Him that I should seek attention and to do good for.