Stop Calling My Daughter Names

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

“I’m so stupid! I can’t do anything right. I’ll never be able to do this! I’m an idiot.” Frustrated and overwhelmed, my daughter threw up her hands in despair and plopped her head down face-first onto the kitchen table in defeat. I wasn’t sure either one of us was going to survive another round with her math homework. A strong writer and an imaginative storyteller, she saw numbers as her nemesis. Despite her good grades in other subjects, she considered her increasing struggle with math as irrefutable evidence of her lack of intelligence. Math was hard, so clearly, she was stupid.

“Stop calling my little girl stupid.”

When she heard my stern voice, she raised her head out of her dramatic slump and looked at me quizzically. I repeated myself.

“I mean it. Stop calling my daughter names. Stop calling my little girl stupid. She is not stupid, and I don’t like you calling her names.”

She smiled at my silliness as she realized I was referring to her, my little girl. I looked at her and once again reiterated my admonition about her self-reproach.

“You, my love, are not stupid. Some things are easy for you. Other things are more difficult, so you will have to work harder. But you can do hard things.”

Although not quite as dramatic as my daughter, I often fall into the same trap of beating myself up, quick to list all the ways I fall short. No one is more intimately familiar with the places I don’t measure up, the areas where I am not enough. I imagine our heavenly Father offering a similar response when we call ourselves names and berate ourselves for our failures. We are tough on ourselves and our inner critic can be so mean. 

“Failure, fat, stupid, lazy, ugly…you will never get it right, you always mess up, what makes you think you can do it this time?”

God says otherwise.

Recognizing and refusing to cooperate with the voice of our inner critic is part of how we partner with God in the work He is doing in our lives. Our inner critic is a saboteur and speaks the language of shame and lies. Although it is important to acknowledge both our strengths and our weaknesses, God never intends for us to drown in shame and condemnation. Filling our minds with the truth of God’s word allows us to turn up the volume on God’s voice and turn down the volume on the one who would keep us feeling defeated, scared, and stuck. 

In order to be brave, we must repeatedly choose who we allow to name us.

God says His children are redeemed, holy, forgiven, uniquely gifted, empowered by the Holy Spirit, brave, and beloved. God proudly declares we are His masterpiece and His handiwork, and He has created us to do good works. God created us and uniquely equipped each of us with gifts, talents, strengths, proclivities, and passions that He intends for us to use for the benefit of our hurting and broken world. When we give in to despair and defeat, we are denying our birthright and our powerful identity as children of God. When we stay stuck in failure and sin and refuse to accept God’s offered forgiveness, we deny the power of what Jesus did for us. Yes, we are a work in progress, but we are the handiwork of the Creator of the Universe. We are in good hands. The masterpiece is not yet complete.

Friend, stop calling God’s beloved child names. Some things will be easy for you. Some things will be harder, but you can do hard things. You are a child of the King.

Excerpt adapted from Being Brave: A 40 Day Journey to the Life God Dreams for You, ©2017 Abingdon Press. Used with permission.