Embracing my NAME

Everyone has a story that goes with why a person was given their name at birth. Especially with unique names, people will commonly ask, where did that name come from or what does your name mean? Humans have this interesting relationship with wanting to name everything. One of the first responsibilities God gave man was to name the animals, insects, trees, and plants. We like to be able to identify what things are for the purpose of knowledge and understanding but also protection. There is a mental process where information is stored in our brains based on our experiences described as "schemas" and whateve information is stored when new experiences appear we rely on schemas to categorize wether something is similar to something we already know and then decide how to react based on its perceived sense of threat or pleasure.

I was blessed with a unique name, Tremanisha Ra’Chell Taylor and I have been told from a very early age of my birth story along with how my name was chosen. On one side I have always felt special that I am a fulfilled promise of God with a self-fulfilling prophecy to seek knowledge to help redeem my community (the heroic story of the first African-American opera named Treemonisha by Scott Joplin). On the other side (shadow work) I have always felt like an outcast with immense pressure to do well to save the people I am connected to. I am now embarrassed to say I don’t know why I have ever believed that I had any of Jesus’ saving power.

Ironically around the age of 5 years old when I began to enter the world system of public education and organized competitive sports I began shortening my full name to a nickname “Trem” in hopes that I could be easily remembered and quickly called on to help as many people as I could with my gifts and talents. I created this character "Trem": she became a teachers pet, she became a mighty missionary, she became a hard working overweight athlete, she became a cleverly funny friend, and most of all she became a respectable daughter. Those are parts of who I am but that was only revealing half of the story.

As I began to seek God for myself, I connected with my first spiritual counselor that recommended a life changing book “Experiencing God” by Henry Blackaby and I have been on a rollercoaster of spiritually awakening ever since. The past three years have been Earth-shattering challenging but it has led me to Year 30 where I am intentionally ready and proud to RE-introduce myself as Tremanisha. I have minimized myself for so long not wanting to stand out but God calls me HOLY, not wanting to show my flaws, but God calls me PERFECT, being afraid to be completely my authentic self, but God calls me BELOVED.

I look forward to you meeting the real ME as I continue to get to know her too.