Called by Name

I remember the day as if it were yesterday. The sand on the southern North Carolina beach was still warm, despite it being October. The sun was just rising above the horizon, filling the clear sky with shades of pinks and yellows. Salty air ascended from the waves which gently lapped the shore. Seems like yesterday – but it was 45 years ago.

I was an 18-year old college freshman. I had never been on a retreat of any kind, much less a spiritual one. But there I was on this beach for a weekend with a group of college students I had only known a very short time: sharing living space, telling our stories, trying to figure out how to navigate this new threshold of college and young adulthood.

The Raleigh Wesley Foundation had an intern/student pastor that fall from Duke Divinity School. She led the service of Holy Communion on the beach that Sunday morning.  As I stood before her to receive the bread and cup, she called me by name.

I’d never been called by name before as I came forward for communion. It was as if in that moment God was speaking my name.

I felt a closeness to God that morning that I hadn’t experienced before. There in the breeze coming off the ocean, I had been called by name.

It felt like my Samuel moment.  You might know the story of Samuel’s call when Samuel thought his mentor Eli was calling him multiple times in the night, but all along it was God. When Eli realized it was the Lord calling, he told Samuel to respond the next time by saying, “Speak, Lord. Your servant is listening.” (1 Samuel 3:1-11)

I felt as if I finally understood the words from the Prophet Isaiah: “But now, says the Lord…I have called you by name; you are mine.”  (Isaiah 43:1)

On that beach, sun warming the air, waves singing their eternal song – I had been called by name. It seems like only yesterday.

Ever since that day, the question has been, “Now, God, what are you calling me to? – to do, to be, to understand, to and with whom?” 

• At one point a few short years after that morning on the beach, I was certain the call was to serve the church.
• When I entered graduate school, I was sure I was going to rid the world of injustice and hurt as a professional social worker.

Forty-five years later, this fall I’m moving through the threshold of retirement on a journey of finding my place of resurrection – that place where God is calling me to right now, the place where my spirit is most alive in this new season. These days it’s not the rays of the morning sun reflecting on the ocean, but streaming through the trees of our yard.  It’s not the smell of salt water and the feel of warm sand, but the hint of smoldering wood from a nearby firepit and the crush of falling leaves. God continues to call my name — and I move through each day asking God to show me where I am being called to respond; what I’m being called to do, to be, to understand; how I am being called to act and to find peace – in the midst of a very anxious time.