He knows my name

Transitioning from college to "the real world" is multi-faceted and weird and beautiful and scary all at the same time. One of the things I've noticed is how my last year of college I really felt at home. I knew a lot of people and a lot of people knew me. When you've been on the same mountain for 4 years people call out your name and you have to sit and think how in the world you know them. I loved being known and knowing other people and their names and their stories. Then I moved. 

I started over. Began a new phase of life. And I became surrounded with people who didn't know my name. I am daily called by the name of a previous teacher or the name of the one down the hall. You know how you associate someone with a certain title, like teacher, then they all become the same. Or even when the person you're dating keeps calling you the name of his ex. 

Well God has used my frustration in that area to teach me more about Himself (God is awesome like that...to trade my hurt and tears and uncertainty for more of Him). He has reminded me in the last few days that He knows my name. And not only does He know my name but He knows my heart. He remembers how many eyelashes I had the day I was born and He knows the pattern of wrinkles on my fingertips when I'm in the shower for too long. He knows what gives me chill bumps and what makes my heart beat fast. He is intimate and He knows me. 

And I am amazed He doesn't confuse me with other people. That's why my students and my boyfriend have a tough time calling me Miss Rogers or Jill. They associate me with someone else. I mean, God has got to know a lot of 20-something female teachers. There are countless 5' 9" brown hair athletic girls who like country music and going to the beach. I'm sure He has created quite a few people over the last thousands of years who have had the same desires I have- to make a difference and love people and have fun along the way. But yet He doesn't get me confused with them. He doesn't forget it's centuries later and it's actually Jill Rogers that He's supposed to be loving. He knows me amidst a billion people and pursues me and loves me. He showers me with Jill-tailored gifts each day to remind me that I am loved and cherished and valued and known. 

I am just so overwhelmed by that, so thankful that even on days when I am more often called the wrong name than the right name...I am still known. 

"Deeper than knowing God is being known by God. What defines us as Christians is not most profoundly that we have come to know him but that he took note of us and made us his own." -John Piper

"Along with adoption, being known by God arguably represents the most personal and comprehensive blessing of salvation."  - Dr. Brain Rosner

eucharisteo

"trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with thanks. gratitude lays out the planks of trust. i can walk the planks- from known to unknown- and know: He holds."

"the power of sin and death and fear-sent-from-the-enemy are forever ended because we can trust in the bridge even if it's caving, 

in God even when it's black, 

in manna-nourishment even when we don't know what it is."

[but again, i refuse to walk the bridge into tomorrow's unknowns. i shame the Bridge-Builder with my worries, my demand to just let me stay here, or go back, but no, not to go on. 
and again He comes to carry me flailing and anxious]

I am so in love with God and all He is teaching me through the book "One Thousand Gifts." The quotes above are just a glimpse of my notes from class with the Most High.