her name is "mommy"

I really have the best job in the entire world… I feel like I am doing it injustice by even calling it a job…finally, I get paid to just be Dennae. :) I really would work at Sojourner Center for free (shh…don’t tell anyone, the pay is kinda helpful for paying bills!) Often, I get in my car after a long, exhausting, draining day and I pause before turning the key. In that pause, I just get this big smile on my face as my mind is flooded with all the precious moments I had that day and great life lessons I learned. There is something about working with hurting children that constantly reminds me of the simplicity of life and the value of love, touch, and belonging. I feel like I have, in many ways, learned more from my kids that I work with then I have taught them.

One of those learning moments happened right before I left for the long weekend on Thursday. I was walking around the center when I found a wandering kid running around in the grass. I asked the four-year-old if I could hold his hand and walk with him back to his room and I said, “I am going to go find your mom, what is her name?” He looked at me and said, “her name is mommy.” I smiled. “Yes, I know, but what do other people call her?” He got a puzzled look on his face and said, “her name is mommy.” I knelt down on his level, so I could be face to face with him, and tried again, “friend, I know you call her mommy, but what about people who aren’t hers, what do they call her?” “mommy.” Hmm…this line of questioning wasn’t working, so I took a different route. “what does she look like?” “She looks like my mommy.” I had to hold in the laughter. “what color hair does she have?” He paused, looked like he was thinking, and with complete sincerity said, “the same color hair all mommies have.” At that point I just decided that I loved this child’s heart and decided to play with him until she came back to the room.

Sometimes I feel like I approach God in that way. I can take the complex, mysterious, awe-inspiring God…and in a few short breaths, simply reduce him to a three letter word, void of meaning and emotion. To a child, “mommy”= “my mother”; to an adult, “mommy” = “billions of women all over the world.”

To me, “God”= my creator, my passion, my love; the one who has rescued me, through Christ, from a life of meaningless existence where the world revolved around me and brought me to a life of purposeful mission where the world revolves around God and his good, justice, grace, and mercy. To the world, “God”= whatever you want him to be.

I think this is why that street corner “preacher” on Mill avenue that says, “repent you evil sinners, the end is near and you are going to burn in hell” really gets my blood pumping. I imagine a person walking up to him and saying, “Who is it that we are supposed to repent to?” The “preacher” looks at him with a “your stupid” look and says, “God.” “Ya, but who is God?” “duh, God is god.” “Okay, I understand that, but who is this God you speak of?” “He is God.”

How quickly that conversation would grow old and annoying. I feel like too often, we approach God as though he were the same as every other “god” in the universe. There is more to “God” then five minute evangelistic tactic could ever present. Are there times where we are given only a five minute opportunity to really share with someone who Jesus is and how he has totally changed our hearts, our passions, our lives? Absolutely. But should that be the majority of times we are talking about who this God is? Absolutely not.


If I believe God to be all that he says he is then my thoughts, my reading, my conversations, my relationships, my time should be consumed with Him. It should be evident in every moment of my life that I am on a life-long quest to intimately know my God and act in a way that reflects His goodness and kindness. I need to have more words in my vocabulary to describe Him then simply, “God.” So much so, that I can spend not just five minutes, but hours and days explaining, describing, and articulating who He is, what He looks like, and what He cares about.