"called me that which i like best"

In the process of clearing out junk so i could move in my junk, i came across the Renfro Coat of Arms that my grandmother had researched and given us.

Renfro originated in Scotland, and was recorded in 1296. it is location based (some were trade based like "miller" or kin based like "john-son"), originating somewhere called "renfrewshire". the Renfro motto? it translates into "God steers the vessel." i love that image. i love that it is my own, my name. it is a good name, but even better, is the name God will bestow.

"to him that overcometh, I will give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it" - Revelation 2:19


George MacDonald, a Scottish author and Christian minister in the 1800s who was an inspiration to great Christian thinkers like G.K. Chesterton & C.S. Lewis wrote a sermon about this "new name":

"The true name is one which expresses the character, the nature, the being, the meaning of a person who bears it. It is the man's own symbol - his soul's picture, in a word...every moment that he is true to his true self, some new shine of the white stone breaks on his inward eye, some fresh channel is opened upward for the coming glory...God has cared to make me for himself, says the victor with the white stone, and has called me that which I like best. I am his; his idea, his making; perfect in my kind, perfect in his sight; full of him, revealing him, alone with him...the name shall be as precious as my life. I seek no more."