The Power In Choosing A Name

In Genesis God gave Adam the power to name the creatures of the earth as they were created. The act of naming something creates a huge tie to that something. There was (and is) great significance to that power, a significance we don't think about that often.

For those of you that don't know me that well I will share something about me. I have a thing for crock pots. I have more than a few of them. I like what they stand for and I love what they do. They are SO practical. As the "potluck season" continues on I use my crock pots A LOT.

Earlier this week our Bible Study had a pot luck dinner in lieu of our regular Wednesday night study. As I brought out one of my favorite crock pots I noticed it had a label, a name if you will. The label on it read "Scott and Frances Adams". As we were going to Tia's chuch and almost no one there knows Frances (or me by that combination of names) it didn't seem right to leave that label on it. I took that label off and left the crock pot unnamed. Much like how my life felt after Frances left, without a label that crock pot seemed empty, lonely.

This morning as I am preparing for another potluck it continued to bother me to have an unnamed crock pot. I started a couple of labels: "Scott Adams" or "Scott, Rebekah and Sarah" but those didn't seem right either. Ultimately I found a comfort, a power in the final result:


The power of naming this crock pot is not in my dominion over the item, but rather in the realization of its representation of the stages in our life. There is greif in the daily realizations that 20+ years of "Scott and Frances Adams" have come to an end. But there is also great delight in the new season called "Scott Adams and Tia Bacon." There is great delight in the gift God has given me in Tia and the girls. Seeing it on a label may be a little thing, but it is real. And it is real powerful to my heart.