“Fear not… I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.” — Isaiah 43:1 (KJV)
Before she ever had a “new name,” Sarai already had a long story. She was born in Ur of the Chaldees, a place of familiarity, roots, and routine. Then came the leaving, the kind of leaving that costs you more than luggage. Sarai followed her husband Abram as he obeyed God’s call to go to a land he had never seen. She crossed borders with faith in her feet and questions in her chest. She lived in tents. She learned new landscapes. She endured famine. She watched Abram navigate fear, conflict, and uncertainty. Through it all, she carried one ache that followed her like a shadow:
Sarai was barren. (Genesis 11:30) That word wasn’t just medical in their world, it was social. It meant whispers. It meant pity. It meant a quiet grief that could show up at celebrations, at baby dedications, at women gathering water together. It meant unanswered prayers folded into ordinary days.
Sarai had lived long enough for people to form opinions about her life. Long enough for waiting to become her identity, not just her circumstance. Long enough for the promise to feel like a story God told other people. Sarai wasn’t just a woman with a delayed dream. She was a woman people whispered about, a woman who carried private disappointments, a woman who could recite the ache of “not yet” like a practiced prayer.
Then God made a promise to Abram that their descendants would be countless. Sarai heard the promise, That sounded too large for a woman with a long history of “not yet.” Years passed. More seasons changed. Her hair grayed. Her body aged. The gap between God’s promise and Sarai’s reality started to feel like a canyon.
At some point, she did what many women do when waiting becomes heavy: she tried to “help” the promise along. Sarai gave Hagar to Abram, hoping a child would come through her household another way. (Genesis 16) But what was meant to ease the ache complicated the home. It added tension. It added pain. It added regret. Even if Sarai didn’t say it out loud, the old label tried to fasten itself tighter: Maybe this promise wasn’t meant for me. Maybe I’m too late. Maybe my body disqualifies me. Maybe my mistakes changed God’s mind.
Then one day, God spoke, right into the middle of her ordinary life, like Heaven had been listening the whole time. Not only did God reaffirm the promise… He changed her name. “Neither shall thy name any more be called Sarai, but Sarah shall her name be.” (Genesis 17:15). God didn’t wait for her body to confirm the miracle. He didn’t wait for the timeline to make sense. He didn’t wait for the external proof. He renamed her before the evidence.
But God often starts with naming, as if to say: You have been letting life call you what I never called you. You’ve been answering to labels that don’t belong to Me. Come here, let Me tell you who you are.
Maybe that’s what you need today, not a dramatic moment, not a loud announcement, just a quiet correction from God: “I have called thee by thy name; thou art mine.”
Not: you are what happened to you.
Not: you are what you did.
Not: you are what they said.
Not: you are what the mirror tries to measure.
But: “You are Mine.”
Seasons have a way of leaving fingerprints. Some seasons press so hard they feel like they rename you. The “single mother” season. The “starting over” season. The “caretaker” season. The “surviving” season. The “I don’t recognize myself” season. And even when the season ends, the label sometimes stays.
Your body may carry the story of your last season, but it does not carry the authority to name you. Your past may explain what hurt, but it does not define what’s next.
Your age may mark time, but it does not cancel purpose. God renames women in the middle of real life. In the middle of delayed dreams. In the middle of “how did I get here?” In the middle of reinvention, when God names you, He isn’t describing your past, He’s declaring your future.
What “name” has your past season tried to give you? Where have you been waiting for outside evidence before believing what God says? If God is calling you “Mine,” what label do you need to stop answering to?
Prayer
Father, thank You that You do not define me by my last season. You call me by name, and You call me Yours. Heal the places where I’ve agreed with labels You never spoke. Teach me to see myself through Your truth, not my history and not the mirror’s criticism. Give me courage to walk like Your naming is already settled.
In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
