A couple weeks ago I listened to a sermon about Ruth. As part of the backstory the pastor talked about Naomi’s transition to the name Mara and what a miserable name that would be to have. That part of the sermon felt a little personal to me. While my name isn’t exactly Mara, it is close. If you look for the meaning of my name, it is the same– bitter.
So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”
“Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter. I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.”
Ruth 1: 19-21
Name meanings are important to me. They have been a pivotal part of deciding what to call each of my six kids. Since four of my children came to us via adoption and already had names, it was important to me to honor the names they came with and to incorporate names that represented their new life with us. We have chosen names with meanings that reflect God’s involvement in the lives of our children and our hopes for their futures. I have seen God’s intentionality with names in the Bible and believe it matters.
So what about a woman named Bitter? What does this mean in my life?
I don’t resent the meaning of my name. I don’t think my parents should have named me something else, something happier, something more positive (other than that brief moment in Kindergarten where I wanted to be named Jenny just like everybody else). There have been moments of my life where I have felt bitter. And in those moments, I have felt peace that God knew these bitter days were coming and he had been preparing me for them from the start.
Infertility, miscarriages, adoption roadblocks, a stressful job loving children who could never be mine, a marriage with its own share of heartaches. . . There have been moments I felt every bit my name. I remember reading though Job after my second miscarriage and how the words resonated. How I envied the freedom Job felt to acknowledge his bitterness. He didn’t hide it or pretend he was fine. Like Naomi, he acknowledged the pain of his life, the way that pain had changed him, his frustrations with what seems unfair about his circumstances. His freedom to do that as a man God described as blameless and upright was a comfort to me. Could it be okay for me to be honest with God about the bitterness I felt as a woman who so longed to please him, but kept feeling rejected and forgotten?
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