God is Gracious

I remember one night before bed as we were kneeling down together as a family for our family prayer, I randomly announced that I didn’t like my name. I felt the need to let my parents know this little fact as it had been on my mind a lot lately. I felt like they had gotten it wrong. I mean, why couldn’t I be named Rebecca, or Emily, or even Ashley? I looked at my mom to see her reaction. He arms, which had been folded ready to pray, flopped down to her side, slapping her thighs, and her eyebrows crinkled to the middle of her forehead. Confused and almost heartbroken, she sighed “Whaaaaat?? Shauna! We thought long and hard about your name and prayed about it. Why don’t you like it?!” I broke my gaze and looked down at the floor, ashamed and guilty for even bringing it up. “I don’t know” was all I could come up with, “I just don’t like it”.

For years, I’d cringed when someone would speak my name, thinking it sounded so juvenile and that it wasn’t pretty at all. I left home for the first time and went to college. “Here’s my chance to change it” I thought. Though I didn’t have the guts to - for that was my name! “Shauna” is what I have been called my whole life. But the struggle to accept my name and dislike for it was still there. One day while studying in between classes, I snacked on a box of raisins. I didn’t pay any attention to the box until they were practically gone. I looked inside the box, finding a couple that had stuck to the corners, and reached my finger to fetch them. It was then that I noticed that on the top flap of the box there was a little saying. Curious of what my fortune might be that day, I pulled the box closer to read it. It said, “Your name is your parent’s gift to you. Live up to it.” I tore the lid off, stuck it in my pocket, and pondered this thought. I knew what my name meant, “God is gracious”, and I didn’t know how I could possibly live up to it. After all, it didn’t say that I was gracious - it said that God was gracious. When I got home that evening, I stuck the ripped-off raisin lid in my scriptures, and it remained there for many years where I’d randomly come upon it, read it again, then disregard it.

Now having children of my own, I understand the giant task that is naming a child. For months, I’d stew over what was this child’s name was supposed to be, for I truly believed that my children were meant to have a certain name. Prayer after prayer and hours spent looking up different names, my mother’s words echoed in my mind “We thought long and hard about your name, why don’t you like it?” Oh I sure hope my children like their names! It would crush me if one of my kids announced to me what I had to my mom. Yet I still couldn’t accept mine.

Just this morning, I was reading my scriptures when I came upon the word “grace”. It had a footnote symbol next to the word, and in the footnotes it referenced the Bible Dictionary. I shuffled through the pages to find the definition of “Grace”. The second line of the definition reads “The main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength, given through the…love of Jesus Christ”. Oh boy, do I ever need extra help and strength in my life right now. Between raising children, housekeeping, marriage, self worth, insecurities – you name it – I need some extra help and strength. As do us all, I’m sure! I continued reading, “Grace cannot suffice without total effort on the part of the recipient”. Now, I understand that the grace spoken of here is referring to our ultimate salvation, but it is so applicable to my everyday life. How can I pray for and expect help from my Savior if I haven’t been or am not willing to put in my “total effort”? If I am waking up in the morning and the first thing I do is check my email or social media accounts, I am not making an effort to put Jesus Christ first, so how can I expect to receive total strength and divine help throughout the day? If I’m not putting forth total effort into my marriage or my parenting, I can’t expect to fully receive the help I need to strengthen those family relationships.

Most days, I fall short and I can’t give it my all. I’m tired, I’m beat, I have no motivation…life gets hard and I don’t want to face it all. But if all I can do that day is pray to have a happier disposition or to simply get the laundry done, I know that the Lord knows that that is all I can do, and I know that He will help give me the strength to accomplish those little tasks and then some.  I’m comforted with the knowledge that I am not alone in my journey, that even when I feel extremely alone, my Savior is always there to help me, guide me, and strengthen me.

How grateful I am to my parents for the gift that is my name. I have a constant reminder that “God is gracious”, that He will help and strengthen me. But not only that, my name is a constant reminder to put forth my total effort in order to receive those total blessings. I love my name, I plan on living up to it - every day.