Receiving Our New Names

I just had to share this email I got from my friend, Jenny. She's mommy to 10 blessings: 5 biological and 5 adopted from Liberia. This precious note from one of her sons led to a spiritual revelation:

Solomon wrote Brad and I a note that read, "Dear Dad and Mom, God
never showed me this before, but I see that I am a new creation in
Christ and the old things are passed away. So from now on I have a
new name. I am calling myself Jedidiah and you can call me that
now. Love, Jedidiah. (I took the liberty of correcting the spelling
errors here, otherwise it may be indecipherable to those not familiar
with children's phonetic spelling)

I then thought about the new name we have been given in Christ when we were adopted in love. That name is "accepted and chosen." I was
doing the Beth Moore bible study on the fruit of the Spirit and
learned that in Isaiah 53:3 when it describes Christ as "rejected by
"men" part of that word "rejected" means "vacant." I remember when we first brought Adriana home from Liberiathat is the word that
described the look in her eyes: vacant. Abandoned, leaving an
empty space that longed to be filled. Even as a baby that spirit of
rejection was on her, and she was badly in need of the spirit of
adoption. She is now a laughing, smiling, much less fearful little
toddler who makes eye contact glory to GOD! Does that mean she (or
any of us) is 100% free of rejection and totally embraces what it
means to be chosen in love and adopted into the family of God?
Doubtful.

There is something of our old nature that tilts toward the negative
and finds it easier to dwell on the rejection of others rather than
embrace our new status as "chosen and accepted" in our Beloved
Jesus. But my prayer for all my children is that whatever rejection
they experience from others will only drive them closer to the
unfailing love of the Father, who sent His Son for them. Jesus
Christ knows what it is to be rejected by His own, but He was chosen
by God to reconcile us to Himself, to make us a chosen people where
before we were orphans and foreigners but now we are members of God's household with full rights as sons and daughters of the most High God.