A New Name

Then the man said, “You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.”  Gen. 32:28

My son Andrew and his new wife Jessica had barely left on their honeymoon when I received a phone call.  The caller ID startled me.  It was the first time I had seen my new daughter-in-law use her new name.  Who is Jessica Sauls?

Taking a new married name is much more an intentional choice these days than when Ginger and I got married.  It makes my daughter-in-law’s enthusiasm about it more powerful and laden with meaning than if she had done it because of tradition or someone else’s expectations.  Instead, she had made it an expression of herself and what she was making for herself. 

Jacob also took on a new name at a crucial moment in his life.  His had to do with returning to a family left behind years before in betrayal, but as a new person shaped by his experience away.  Jessica’s had to do with her choice to start a new life with my son.  Both represent adventures, and like all adventures, both have an element of striving in them, which is to say having some strife. 

I think my daughter-in-law will find, as did Jacob,  that the blessing is in the striving itself.  Blessing is found in the striving that comes with building a new life.  That’s how God will shape her . . . and us into new creations.  It is how she will answer the question she has taken on for herself:  Who is Jessica Sauls?

Peace,
+Stacy