I’ve been asking for many years, “Who am I?” Being an orphan with two living parents, from an abusive childhood, the answer to the question, “Who am I?” has become multi-layered. Yes, I’m a dad of three. Yes, I’m a middle school Language Arts and Social Studies teacher. Yes, I’m a writer with a passion. But who am I?
My birth name was John Thomas Johnson, Jr. My parents couldn’t agree on my name so my father’s mother – who happened to also be the “delivery nurse” – named me after her son, without either of my parents knowing she’d filled in the birth certificate. In order to give me my own identity, my mother called me “Tom” from day one. Growing up with my birth name was difficult. It didn’t seem to fit. I felt compared to my father all the time. He and I are nothing alike and I didn’t want to grow up to be just like him.
In high school, I was taken by the stories of name changes (Saul to Paul, Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, etc.). I felt misnamed. I prayed, asking God what my true name was. After months in prayer, the new name God chose for me was very clear: Thomas Michael Johnson. On my 18th birthday, I legally changed my name. Because of my family heritage, I chose the Celtic spelling of “Thom.” My mother was happy and my father was not. He wanted to get his name changed so that I would be a “Jr.” again. I said, “No.” He took it as a slap in the face, like I didn’t love him anymore. I tried to explain the journey I’d been on. I truly believed God was the author of my name change; He was defining my identity. My father didn’t understand.
Fast forward a few decades, and I found myself asking the same question again: “Who am I?” The question has kept me awake many nights.
Just days before the wedding, Carolyn and I were talking about the power of names. She asked me, “What’s the spiritual connotation of your names?” I was puzzled. “I don’t know what you mean.” Then Carolyn said, “Let’s look you up.” She handed me a very unique book of names. In it, the author lists multiple layers to the meaning of names we sometimes over-simplify. Each tells the…
Language/Cultural Origin
Inherent Meaning
Spiritual Connotation
Scripture
…connected to each name.
I quickly cracked the book and began my search.
“Thomas” means “Twin.” I’ve known that for nigh 30 years. Many told me it meant “duplicitous” or “deceitful,” possibly even “double minded.” With the Apostle in mind, it definitely meant “doubtful.” I thought it was odd that every time I took a personality test, I seemed to come up with the personality of polar opposites: the extroverted introvert. What I did not know was the spiritual connotation the name “Thomas” holds which indicates “one who is Divinely Preserved.” Proverbs 2:11 has been connected to the name Thomas: “Discretion will guard you, understanding will watch over you.” That’s far from the “possible explanations” I’d been given.
It wasn’t new to me that “Michael” is a question which means “Who is like God?” It’s a name of one of the highest ranking angels in Heaven. The fact that the name is a question has always puzzled me. The name book defined the spiritual connotation for “Michael” is “Esteemed,” and it led me to Exodus 15:11 – “Who is like You, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like You, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?” I was no longer puzzled by the question mark buried within my name. I got the impression that my name was a question of worship, of awe.
Just for grins, I looked up “John.” John means “God is Gracious.” Other translators have said, “Gift of God.” It brings with its name the connotation of the “Strength of God.”
I sat for a beat, then said to Carolyn, “So my name means ‘One who is Divinely preserved – by discretion and understanding – Esteemed, and a Gracious Gift of Strength?”
“That’s what it looks like to me,” Carolyn replied.
“Well, maybe without the strength part,” I snickered, “since it is no longer my name.”
That’s not how Carolyn saw it. She reminded me of a prophecy spoken over the five of us. We were each given a one word adjective describing how God sees us. Mine: “Unbreakable.” I nearly laughed. I’d had a “brain” tumor on my pituitary gland in college that caused my bones to be two and a half times more dense than an average man’s bones. “Basically, you’d have to be going 80 miles an hour at a brick wall nearly a mile thick in order to break your bones,” were the bone specialist’s exact words. I saw the irony of it and chuckled a bit.
“So I can’t break a bone. That doesn’t mean I’m unbreakable.”
Carolyn didn’t let go.
“You’re unbreakable,” she began. “You’ve been through something that would take many out of the church, would take their focus off God and maybe even cause them to question if there really is a god. But you still not only believe in God, but are following Him passionately. You’ve even written a book about stuff that would break most people. You are unbreakable, Thom, because God has made you unbreakable. That’s strength. It’s been in your name all along.”
I looked down at my last name and that’s where my brain hit the proverbial wall, pondering what Carolyn had just said.
Johnson.
My brain divided the word into its two pieces.
John-son.
I shook my head and looked again.
John Son.
Tears sprang from nowhere. I didn’t even know I was in “one of those conversations.” Carolyn and I had many of “those conversations” where God caught our attention and held it fast. He’s taught us much in the last 5 months through many of “those conversations.”
Carolyn once told me of a conversation she’d had with God where she asked Him, “What do you call me?” His reply, “Beloved.” I was taken by that conversation and asked God the same question. Nothing profound hit me. I didn’t have a life altering experience. I simply remembered Him calling me “Thomas Michael Johnson” so many years ago. I was satisfied with that…almost. After a few weeks of no answer, the question began to gnaw at me. I figured that if I knew what God actually called me, then I might know the answer to my other question: “Who am I?”
As I sat there staring at a book of names, the answer to both questions was very clear. Who am I? Thomas Michael Johnson. Thom to most of the world. What does God call me? Son. I know the theology that we are all sons and daughters of the Most High, but the head knowledge had never settled into my true knowing. I no longer felt like an orphan. Abba God called me “Son.”
I may, like Paul or Jacob, be in process of becoming the man God defined by the name He gave me – “A Gracious Gift of Strength who is Esteemed and Divinely Preserved, by discretion and understanding” – but I am not in process of becoming a son. I simply am His son. At 46 years of age, I finally know who I am!
The immovable wall came in the form of a novel I was set to teach this year. I’ve taught it before with great success. It’s one of my favorite “YA” author’s books. Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy, by Gary D. Schmidt, has won many awards, including the ever-coveted Newbery Honor. My 6th graders and I began reading it during the last week of October. The curriculum requires me to read the book aloud with the students and not to let them take the book home. Why? To teach them to be active readers. To teach them how to understand literary devices. To teach me a very difficult truth.
“Micah, why’d you skip so much school already?” a boy in one of his classes asked him that day. They knew each other from the previous semester, but they weren’t really friends. (Micah had transferred from a private school to an Arts focused, option, public school in the middle of his junior year, and it had been rough.
Good Grief?!? 