On Wednesday I was driving home from testing at Iowa City and thinking myself into a full-fledged whiner wonder– similar to a pity party but more contemplative and reflective with a lot less wailing and hopelessness. I get frustrated with not feeling well, and even more frustrated with only being able to say that I have an ‘unidentifiable illness’ or a ‘mystery disease’ or it’s ‘just me’ or ‘they’re working on it’. It’s very vague, and there’s no 5K or snazzy colored ribbon to show support; maybe I should wear a question mark. (FYI: Carcinoid Syndrome is a zebra-striped ribbon)
    I went to bed wondering, whining: ‘so where in the Bible is the answer for this?’ I pick up Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts and continue reading where I’ve left off:

“God’s good. Just naming it…Just naming it. When you don’t have the name for something, you’re haunted by the shadows. It ages you.” (Voskamp, 52) 

I’m drawn in…this is what I’m feeling; this is me right now: haunted and aged. I read on:

“God in the beginning who first speaks a name and lets what is come into existence. This naming is how the first emptiness of space fills: the naming of light and land and sky. … Adam completes creation with his Maker through the act of naming creatures, releasing the land from chaos, from the teeming, indefinable mass.” (53) 

“To name a thing is to manifest the meaning and value God gave it. …Naming is to know a thing’s function in the cosmos — to name is to solve mystery. … God is in the details. God is in the moment. God is in all that blurs by in a life — even hurts in a life. (54) 

God is faithful — the name will come, even if it is ‘idiopathic something-something’ and I don’t feel haunted by the shadows, because I know there is Light.