I was 6 the first time that my name was changed. My parents were moving us from California, where I was born, to Pennsylvania, where I grew up. All my life until that point, I was Catherine Michelle Gross. Yep, Gross. We would be teased and jeered at constantly. “Eww, you are so gross”, or when we found out how much a “gross” in measurements weighed, we were told that we were so heavy because we were a gross. Being 6, I don’t remember it bothering me all that much. I know that it would have as I was growing up, but I don’t remember too much of how it made me feel. All my relatives were used to the name and we were going to be too.
I remember that there was a family with the last name Gass that we were friends with. I can remember making fun of them like I had been made fun of. When my father decided to start his own company with a friend of his, we were moving from CA to PA. My mother, who hates to be cold, said that the one requirement for her to move where there were 4 seasons was to change our last name from Gross to G. Ross. So thus, my first name change. This was also my first change of life.
My second name change, although not legal, came when I went to a camp for one month. There were 3 girls named Catherine in my cabin. My sister had a habit of saying my name so fast that it sounded like Kevin, so to avoid the inevitable confusion, all three of us took on nicknames that we had never had before. I was called Kevin (but with a C), which suited me since I was a super tomboy at the time. That camp was a life changing experience for me and I loved every minute of it.
The next time I changed the way people addressed me was when I went to college. I decided it was a whole new group of people, no one knew me (other than my roomie), I could go by whatever I wanted to. So I decided to go by Cat. Again –it was a life-changing event that allowed me to be able to change my name.
The final time that I changed my name was when I was married to my fantastic husband. My last name went from Ross to Miller. That too, was a life changing event.
In the Bible, there are tons of examples of people changing their names when life changed them. Abraham went from Abram, Saul goes to Paul, Simon to Peter. God would take a name that was a weak name and make it strong. He would make it be able to glorify God.
2 Corinthians 5:17 “This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (NLT)
When we became a Christian, God took us from our old self and made us our new self. He made us a new creation. He made us into his own. He changed our names from Sinner to Daughter/Son. He changed your life. Now, a lot of people, when they are baptized receive a Christian name. This is to show they are a new person, they are no longer a child of sin, but a child of God.
For all of us to go about changing our names after conversion would be difficult. There are legal holes to jump through etc… but our names HAVE been changed in all ways that count. They have been changed and put into the book of life. Instead of my name being “Catherine the sinner”, I am “Cat, the daughter of Christ.” My sins are gone- it has no hold on me.
So although I didn’t go through the legal issue of changing my name, there is still the social aspect of changing it. I used to be known as a sinner, now I have to prove that I am saved. I used to be known as Cat the ______________, or Cat the ____________… but now I am known as Cat, the daughter of Christ. See what I am saying people?
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