I had 3 different names before I was 7 years old. My given name always remained the same, but my last name was on rotation to keep me safe and unrelated to the man who sired me.

When I reached the stage of adulthood where people wanted to call me Miss or Ma’am or Mrs, I always have to correct them.. “Please,” I say, “please, just ___. I am just me.” And they always look a little hurt, and a little puzzled. They had given me an honorific that is given to women with crow’s feet and tired eyes… and even when married (perhaps especially when married), I rejected it; “no no,” I would say, “Mrs. ____ is my mother in-law, please just call me __.”

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The past 36 hours have been filled with learning, thinking, pondering. As a fairly new Catholic, a fairly new Christian (while we had Christian underpinnings to our upbringing, I have attended church with my Mother maybe twice before becoming Catholic – one of which was my older brother’s wedding). I am very involved in my parish. I was born to serve, and my parish became my home and my refuge. The place I could go when I could go nowhere else.

And so, thanks to an abundance of gifts from the Lord which I have found fill me with life-giving purpose when used to serve in and around my parish and and parish-school, I was invited to participate in a workshop called Rescue by an organization called Acts XXIX.

I was supposed to be there last Saturday for the intensive Rescue Project experience, but God had other plans and both my children were down and very sick. So, I was invited to this weekend’s Leadership event – one evening and one day-long introspective. A first for me. I’ve been to conferences before – a trauma-informed workshop through my office, trainings on first nations sensitivity, workshops on understanding how the brain works in order to better work together with colleagues – all very secular and beautiful learnings to be sure, but nothing like this.

So – where am I going with this today? I find myself incredibly vulnerable in pretty much anything introspective. I certainly was not raised that way. Little blonde girls were taught to smile always and push your anxieties and worries away. Frowning, sad faces, worried faces, were never okay. Deep discussion about emotions, religion, politics, world views were always very much “not okay” growing up, and these days are very carefully tiptoed around in my family, but are quickly abandoned the moment the emotional temperature in the room rises above an easy laughing-level.

So, as someone who cries when too many people simply look at her, being present and open and authentic in a room filled with cherished parish-family and strangers was awfully hard.

There was a moment that I couldn’t share verbally with the group, but I feel is still worth sharing. As always, I write better than I speak; I am more fluid in this medium. Spoken words to me remain a challenge. But… I want to describe something remarkable.

Today’s lunchtime-prep invited us to spend our lunch in prayer and silent contemplation with the Lord… We are reminded of Matthew 16:15, “But who do you say that I am?” and then we were challenged to ask the Lord today in prayer, “By what name do you call me, Father?”

And so, with all of that preface, I wish to share with you what I found in my prayer and contemplation:

I love the name of God, Ruah… Yahweh… A name so perfect that we must hear it every moment of our existence. Our very breath murmurs God’s name. To live is to live in, through, and completed by God. We are ever reminded of his presence. We call His name when we sleep, when we exercise, when we cry out. When our breath hitches and hiccups filled with tears of pain. When we bubble out laughter and joy. When we stare in awe at the marvelous beauty of His creation – without any conscious thought, we call His name.

When I was confirmed, I was asked to select a saint for myself. I chose Martha; a woman with whom I keenly identify. I big sister. Someone to look up to, to emulate, to appreciate our similarities in approach to this world: to prayer, to work, and to service. I am inspired by her. But God does not call me Martha, however much I identify with her – so much so that I have used her name for my blog.

I am me. Simply me. Dear God – can that please be enough?

It’s not so simple, is it?

I am His. As are You.

I am a daughter, a scribe, an instrument. I pray to the Holy Spirit to guide my hands so that the music I make might possibly be enough to lift a heart in prayer, that the food I bake and craft fills and nourishes someone’s belly and brings pleasure to their senses so that they might be drawn ever closer to Him. He has given me dreams, and visions, and gifts.

But to be a daughter. A Daughter.

As I write this I am reminded of my adoptive-father’s voice, Dad. The only Dad for me, the man who took me in and raised me as his own. And I was a challenging child. I would embarrass him, challenge him, be incredibly rude to him. And he bore it all for love of my mother and for love of me. And he calls me daughter. He made me his and he loves me completely, and I did nothing to earn or deserve that; and he taught me what men can be. Should be. A lesson I learned rather late in life. But still, how I love him and appreciate him for all he has sacrificed so that I might know real love.

With God, I was born and made by His hand. Crafted with intention. I was meant to be here and now.

However, I have no ‘name’ for myself. I cannot come to one. Not beloved, not perfect one, not apple of my eye – these are names others in the conference heard as they listened in prayer to our Lord. For he loves us all. My challenge is, and remains, how much I have struggled to believe that I deserved to exist at all. How many years did I pray for an ending? How often did I apologize to God for ever having been born; how often do I shy away from taking up space?

I still remember cresting the hill to the home I shared with my former husband, and the desire to disappear myself. To press down the gas peddle and leave for the mountains. Hike myself to death from exposure. To melt down among the trees and moss that have embraced me since I was a child, and simply no longer walk this earth? I always paused, each time that temptation flooded my mind, and God would show me my children’s beautiful countenances, and I would turn on my clicker and turn right, park my car and muster up a smile and fill my senses with the beauty of their perfect innocent souls.

To this day, in prayer, I catch myself – I struggle to call up the phrase that “I believe in the forgiveness of sins”, and I apologize for being here and being present.

But, but, but – here is where the narrative needs to change within myself. God said to me today, very clearly, “I remind you of the gifts I have given you; you are here because this is Your path and You have work to do.” I am loved. By Him, our creator. We ALL are His children, his very Loved children, and we have work to do.

I am not the only woman on this planet who has experienced challenges; but I fully know how hard it is to walk into a church and kneel and not feel like you’re going to catch on fire, right there, in the pew. To feel absolutely afraid – not of God – but of His followers. To feel their judgement before ever giving them a chance to know you or love you.

I am reminded today to get out of my own head. To stop putting my own history and my own life experiences in front of the will of God. He tested me, and I found the strength to leave a bad situation so that my children will have a chance, a chance, to be good men and to be leaders in this world. I feel that, however much I am afraid, however small and unworthy I am, that I can help God’s children find Him and trust in Him. And I am blessed, because God gave me a family here, a parish family, who are all beautiful leaders, and together we weave a small rich tapestry that invites others to come. Just simply come. And be.

Dear God, I pray, when you look upon the marvelous tapestry of humanity in this world, laid alongside the tapestry of the Earth you have built filled with the amazing riches of life and abundance, that when you see my frayed and worn thread woven among my brothers and sisters, that You see my thread, and that is enough. To be seen, to be loved. The idea that God created a rich marvelous, everlasting quilt and I am but a single thread, and He has the power to restore me, to smooth my frayed edges, to mend my broken parts – surely there will be a knot here or there; but scars show that we lived this life.

Perhaps that is enough. To pray that God sees the sum of my parts, and no name is necessary; and I shall breathe and breathe and breathe and say His name with every breath of my being.

And so shall you, whether you’re aware of it or not.

I love you. God Loves You.

Come.