Becoming Before Being Named

There are mornings when I open my scriptures expecting to check a box.

Read a chapter.

Write a few thoughts.

Say a prayer.

And then there are mornings when one small detail completely changes the way I see God.

Today was one of those mornings.

As I was studying, I came across something I had never noticed before. According to the scriptural accounts, Eve wasn’t actually called Eve until after the Fall. Before that, Adam simply referred to her as “the woman.” It wasn’t until after they had partaken of the fruit, after the Lord declared that she would become the mother of all living, that Adam called her Eve.

I had to stop reading.

Why had I never noticed that before?

The timing felt so intentional.

Her name came after the experience that made her purpose possible.

She wasn’t called Eve until she was able to become Eve.

I sat with that thought for a long time.

How often do I ask God to tell me who I am while resisting the very experiences He is using to shape me into that person?

If I’m honest, more often than I’d like to admit.

There have been plenty of times in my life where I begged God to change my circumstances. I wanted Him to remove the pain, answer the prayer, restore the relationship, heal the heart, make the path clear.

Instead, He changed me.

At the time, it didn’t feel like an answer.

It felt like silence.

It felt like waiting.

It felt like wondering if He had forgotten me.

Looking back now, I can see that those seasons were never about punishing me. They were preparing me.

My health crisis taught me dependence.

The painful questions I wrestled through during my deconstruction taught me to build my faith on Christ instead of certainty.

The relationships that broke my heart taught me compassion I couldn’t have learned any other way.

None of those experiences were ones I would have chosen.

But all of them shaped the woman I am becoming.

Maybe that’s why Eve’s story touches me so deeply.

The Fall wasn’t the end of her identity.

It was the beginning of it.

God already knew who she would become. The journey simply gave her the opportunity to grow into what He had always seen.

I wonder if that’s true for us too.

Maybe you’re in a season where you feel unseen. Like everyone else is moving forward while you’re standing still.

Maybe you’re waiting for healing.

Waiting for answers.

Waiting for your family to change.

Waiting for your marriage to improve.

Waiting for God to reveal what’s next.

Can I gently offer another possibility?

What if this season isn’t delaying your purpose?

What if it’s developing it?

What if God isn’t withholding your future from you?

What if He’s lovingly preparing your heart to carry it?

I don’t think Eve became valuable after the Fall.

She was always valuable.

But after the Fall, she was ready to fulfill the calling she had been created for from the very beginning.

That gives me so much hope.

Because maybe the hardest chapters of our lives aren’t evidence that God has abandoned us.

Maybe they’re evidence that He’s still writing.

So if today you feel unnamed, unseen, or uncertain, don’t lose heart.

God already knows your name.

He already sees the woman or man you are becoming.

And perhaps one day you’ll look back, just as Eve did, and realize that what felt like the hardest chapter of your story was actually the beginning of your purpose.

Reflection:
Where is God asking you to trust the process instead of rushing toward the promise? What if the person you’re praying to become is being formed in the very season you’re trying to escape?