Agents of Hope

Today’s post is part two in a series begun yesterday, so you might want to check that out first.
To name some characters who were agents of hope in my life, I reflected on the question,
“How did I come to know Christ?”

My brother and I were not raised in a Christian home, but through a series of circumstances, we ended up attending a Christian school when I was an 8th grader and he was a 10th grader. My brother met Christians who invited him to Young Life and told him about confirmation. He decided that he and I should be confirmed in the Episcopal church (where we had attended occasionally), even though we were both older than most of the communicants. Then he began to take me to Young Life meetings. At Young Life meetings I met older high school students who were attractive and compelling because they were kind to an underclassman. I met three leaders, Judy, Millie, and Susan, who took an interest in my life. One weekend at Windy Gap a very handsome man (in the eyes of a 15-yr-old girl) spoke to us about Christ. I didn’t decide to become a Christian only because I had a schoolgirl crush on the speaker. I did say to God, “I want what these people have!” As I think of how God led me to himself, I have a long list of names and faces that I remember: Bob, Martha, Anne, Judy, Steve, and many more.

We should think about the names of the characters in our stories, beginning with our own. We can begin by considering simply the names we are called, for often those carry a story. I am “Elizabeth,” named after Queen Elizabeth, because my father was a Shakespeare professor who taught people about “Elizabethan England.” Do you know why you are called what you are called? Many of us have nicknames, and some of us have been renamed. The Bible gives precedent for the significance of given names and renaming: Abram renamed Abraham (avram – “exalted father” to aviraham – “father of a multitude”); Ishmael (“God has heard”); Saul renamed Paul after his conversion. Names of all sorts give clues to unique characteristics and to ways we are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus.

Think about it: What are some of the names of people who have been agents of hope in your story? How were they involved in the plot of your life?