"Unnamed" and "Unwanted"

I recently heard someone give their testimony of God's faithfulness in their life. It moved me beyond what words can describe.

This person told of how his mother became pregnant as a teenager, and later abandoned him after his birth in the hospital of one of the nation's large cities.

Many years later, he went to retrieve a birth certificate, and was startled at what he found.

The official document recording his birth labeled him "unnamed boy" and in the notations near the bottom, "unwanted, abandoned by the birth mother."

All of his life he has wrestled with these "judgments" from the moment of his birth. Even after he came to Jesus Christ for salvation, he still struggled with the issues of having been "unnamed" and then "unwanted."

I can identify with him in alot of ways. Even though I was named at birth, I was later abandoned by the very two people responsible for bringing me to natural life.

I have felt "abandoned" more than once since entering adulthood...yet I know these words are true:

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by your name;
You are Mine.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,
Nor shall the flame scorch you.

For I am the LORD your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior;
I gave Egypt for your ransom,
Ethiopia and Seba in your place.

Since you were precious in My sight,
You have been honored,
And I have loved you;

Indeed, the Lord God, who spoke the universe into existence, and who sustains it by His own power, all by Himself, has called me by my name.

And I am His.

Phil Hoover
Chicago