Children are a gift and blessing. When I learnt I was pregnant with my first born child, I was overwhelmed. Right from my childhood I desired to be a mother. This life desire was probably instilled in me because I helped raise my cousins and probably because I was an only child for so many years. When I became a woman and finally understood what it meant to be a mother, I visited my friends to celebrate the bundle of joy that had come into their life. During the visit I would seek to know the name of the baby.
I have had low moments in my life when I questioned who I was and life purpose. I went out seeking for all the answers I could find from all the sources. The source that made sense to me was the Bible. Reading the Bible revelead to me that when God needed to task someone, He empowered them with their name. That is the time I went digging the meaning of my name "Grace Anne Wangari. The discovery was impressive. My name was and is so powerful I wanted to speak it loudly and proudly to all; I still do. The name means "Favor Favor Wa-leopard " which I commonly refer as Double Favor Wa-leopard. I came to learn that Grace means Favor and Anne means Grace hence the Double Favor. As for Wangari the English translation from Kikuyu is Wa- leopard. My name meant and means that I walk in favor , I am favored, I have favor and this gave me a new sense of purpose ; to share the favor. In addition, I sort to seek the good traits in a leopard and this too wowed me . I discovered that unlike other cats the leopard isn't under threat of extinction. This is because a leopard is able to adapt to extreme weather conditions. It will eat insects & grass to survive when there are no animals to hunt. This loudly spoke to me that I have endurance through my name. Nothing and no-one should put me down, I was born to thrive even in harsh conditions.
When the doctor confirmed we were expecting a girl. My husband and I decided we need a name that speaks into the life of our child. Kikuyu culture dictates that the first boy and girl of a family is named after the father and mother of the man (I find this selfish, story for another day) This meant that my daughter was to adopt the Kikuyu name of my mother in-law. Fortunately for us we had 3 names to choose from and we settled on Wangui - which we understood to mean Wa-firewood. She would be the fire that warms up our heart and family we were blessed referring her as such. When it came to the baptismal name we settled for Zanetta which is a Spanish name that means God's gift. It was perfect because we had both longed to be parents and God had finally gifted her to us. We further dug the short form meaning of her baptismal name. The name spoke more life into our daughter. Zane - God is gracious ( but it's a boy's name) (English) and Netta - drops of water found inside a rose in the early morning ( Arabic) . Our daughter had quenched the thirst in us to be parents ; God had been gracious to us.
Today I choose to challenge us all to know the meaning of our name. Let us look to empower ourselves with our name. There are names whose meaning spell bad things but look for the positive meaning and adopt it. Refuse to identify yourself with the negative meaning of your name. As we choose the names of our children let us choose names that speak life into them not misery. Let us raise our children proud of their names. We can only do this if we all take time to understand what a name means before giving it to our child. Remember with the name we are empowering the world to identify a child as per the meaning of the name. The name also speaks the life that the name means.
Names are powerful and speak life or death into our lives. Let us identify with the meaning of the name that speaks life. I believe our names have a meaning in one language out there. Yap Wang is King in Chinese. Goes on to empower me through my name Wangari.
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