The Name I Was Given, The Name I Have Become

A Story of Bloodlines, Burdens, and Becoming

Before a child is given the concept of God, they already know Him—through the ones who hold them as a baby, teach them, and shape the world around them.

Parents are the first gods children recognize, long before the word is spoken into them.

Before authority is explained, it is lived.

As a child, my father was my primary caregiver and authority figure. He taught me how to manage the world around me and, most importantly, he taught me how he navigated his world.

I never got to eulogize my father. In fact, I barely got to be a part of his life in physical presence due to the mental illness and sinful possession of his wives.

I am my father’s greatest pride, and his deepest sorrow.

He loved me dearly, but love alone could not save him.

His demons were many, and though I saw him clearly, he could not always see himself.

My father failed himself, and he failed me. But I have never failed to carry his spirit forward.

That spirit is still far from resting, but I live so that one day it hopefully will. There’s still so much work to do though.

I always understood my father’s voice and his life, though he struggled to communicate his thoughts in many of the same ways that I do.

I was never confused by where his behaviors came from, regardless of what anybody told me.

My first language will always be Dad.

He fed me his beliefs. He fed Me His values, and he will forever be my first and primary muse.

“Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)

He didn’t deserve the treatment he got, anymore than I did. Though we both apparently always kept asking for it.

I understand my father’s love, but it’s rarely been easy to navigate.

Had he been more forthcoming with me from the beginning, things could have been better. But how was he to know?

How was he to believe or to trust himself with the truth of everything? There’s no way that the child could really understand—is there?

Instead, they used me as their weapon against him. Still I protected Him.

He never spoke a negative word to me about either of his wives, even though I witnessed how they treated him—not to mention what they both did to me. And he protected them. He always chose them.

Don’t get me wrong, when my dad lost his temper, he was no prize. But he did the best he could to make Me into the man he could never be. She never understood. She was only ever jealous and vengeful.

He taught me how to fish, make calculated decisions, and to budget effectively.

He taught me how to cook like an artist and how to please people, just like his mother’d taught him well to do.

He taught me how to bob and weave. He taught me how to respond to his cues.

Unfortunately for us both, he ultimately failed to properly honor or understand himself—or me for that matter.

That didn’t stop me from seeing him or trying to inspire him to change.

Throughout his life I mostly protected his good name, regardless of the living nightmares that my love for and obedience to him brought my way.

When he finally released his attachment to the physical body he’d possessed, his soul peacefully returned to his father’s. Now, he shares mine.

At the moment of his final breath I felt him from a world away, as Our Father in Heaven assigned My Mission to Me—which I previously shared in this earlier writing:

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Now I equally understand my humanity and my divinity through the wealth of experiences I have lived, and the wisdom in reflecting I have ever gleaned from it all.

Through the countless mentors who have guided me along the way, the resources I have discovered and studied, every investment, every mistake, all of my steps through all the countries I have walked, and through every interaction I’ve ever had with the countless thousands of individuals I’ve coached, counseled, and communed with: I have learned.

Despite appearances, my path has never been easy.

Dad used to tell me: “You sure are a glutton for punishment” before slinging some insult or object my way.

My life’s been enriched by each experience, and every being whose words have deeply pierced my soul. There is no good or bad in the end. There’s just the past. There’s just subjective memories. Snippets of history.

Through my recognition of truth, trials, and tribulations, I never lost sight of the peace I ultimately seek.

God—The Almighty—has forever been my rock, my strength, and my salvation.

It is from His direction I was brought forth into this world, and it is through His will above all others that I continue to stay.

In humility and goodwill I share my life stories with you, even though doing so is absolute agony.

It tears me apart and is quite literally the last thing I ever wanted to do.

Yet here we are. Living in a world of judgment, so vastly different from the faith that I’ve always owned.

I do not open myself up seeking acclaim or recognition. Not sympathy, and certainly not praise.

Please don’t ever tell me how strong I am. Please don’t apologize for what I’ve endured. Don’t take pity on me.

Just listen. Just hear. Just appreciate.

Because due to my silence, I’ve failed for more than forty years.

I would prefer to never have to speak again. Never to have to introduce or talk about myself. Never have to convince anyone that my time, my labor, or my ideas are worth at least a penny.

Somehow I dreamt of retiring with a cafe—maybe a charm filled motel. My true love with me, someplace quiet, where his children and grandchildren would visit often. Where we’d fill the house with genuine laughter and love.

That was the idea I convinced myself was attainable. But now I know, that option was never actually available to me.

The world has become so ungodly. I now know my job is to get through to You, if it’s the last thing I ever do.

For Your loves. For Your lives. For eternity. That’s all there is left. Mine are all gone.

So I show and I tell, and I bear and I grieve.

All in public. All alone. Against all odds and adversaries.

With any luck, someday soon you might understand me. Perhaps my words might trigger you to remember where you came from too. Hopefully, before it’s too late for your children.

So please, bear with me, and pay attention. Please. For the love of God and in appreciation of the suffering that I choose.

This is My Story.

The Sacred Power of Names

A name is not just a word.

It is a sentence.

A prophecy.

A burden we carry, whether we recognize it or not.

Before I could understand the full implications of my own names, I had to understand those of my father.

His names carried weight, as all names do—bestowed upon him by his heavenly Mother, Mary.

We walk through earthly life with the meaning our parents assign to us at birth. But names are never just names. They are callings. They are prayers. They have always been the first prophecy.

No longer are we bound to accept the accusations of others. No longer are we bound by the bonds of our circumstances.

It is knowledge, not citizenship, that dictates our existence. Remember that. Because peace ultimately exists first and foremost in the mind.

The ideas you have of what should be or could be are but dreams and fairy tales designed by industries that are designed to keep us blind.

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.” (Isaiah 26:3)

Stories are superfluous when you understand codes—meaning that they present more information than one ever needs, if one is genuinely quiet, diligent, and curious.

Stories are meant to conceal (and reveal) truth. They serve those who prefer spectacle over substance, consuming narratives less to understand, more to escape.

The ones who crave the rush of entertainment, the intoxicating lure of distraction, the safety of make-believe—where nothing is required of them beyond indulgence.

They delight in the dramatization of suffering, reveling in tragedy—as long as it remains distant, fictional, or neatly packaged for consumption.

They mistake voyeurism for awareness, sensationalism for knowledge, titillation for truth.

They glorify depravity in their media, yet feign outrage when it bleeds into reality—as though the world they celebrate in fantasy could somehow remain separate from the one they inhabit.

They are numbed by the very illusions they devour, unable to discern the manufactured from the real, unwilling to engage in the weight of what actually is.

Their sins are not just private indulgences, but shared—reinforced, and sold back to them as entertainment. And they can’t get enough.

As long as they’re pleased and distracted, nothing else matters.

But slow down in your eagerness to numb yourself and you will always find the answers that you seek—hidden behind the details meant to deceive and confuse you.

Think about any brilliant movie, painting, song, or book and you’ll understand what I mean.

You’re moved by messages that evolve from beneath the surface—feelings that you can rarely find ways to express, yourself. Most people never even notice them. But you do.

Choosing a name for one’s child is like this. It’s extremely challenging and sacred.

Modern mothers tend to pick names based on their superficial likes, often before conception or finding a mate even occurs.

It wasn’t always this way, though.

You can tell a lot about who someone is and where they come from based on their name, if you understand it. Because naming happens in partnership between birth parents, the child’s nature, and God.

The Sacred History of Names in Abrahamic Traditions

In Judaism, a child’s name is considered prophetic—an utterance of destiny, often linked to divine promises, family heritage, or biblical figures whose spirit the child may carry forward.

Jewish children receive a Hebrew name at birth, distinct from their secular name. It is spoken in prayers and rituals as a direct invocation of their soul’s mission.

It is common practice in Ashkenazi communities to name a child after a deceased relative, ensuring that their legacy carries on, while Sephardic Jews may honor a living ancestor, strengthening generational ties in the present.

In Christianity, a name is often tied to spiritual calling, saintly virtue, or the will of God.

The angel Gabriel commanded Mary to name her son Jesus (Yeshua), meaning ‘God saves,’ embedding His mission into the very sound of His name.

Early Christians took names that reflected divine virtues—Grace, Faith, Christopher (Christ-bearer)—while Catholic and Orthodox traditions upheld the practice of choosing saints’ names at baptism, forging a spiritual lineage through their intercession.

In Islam, names carry deep theological weight, often reflecting one of the 99 Names of Allah or embodying righteousness, strength, or prophetic lineage.

A child’s name is traditionally given on the seventh day after birth during the Aqeeqah ceremony, in which the name is pronounced over them as their hair is shaved—symbolizing purification and a fresh beginning in submission to God’s will.

Across these traditions, the act of naming is not arbitrary. It is a calling, a recognition, a divine fingerprint left on the soul. It is why, when names are changed—by force, by conversion, or by choice—it is never just a linguistic shift. It is a spiritual recalibration—a rewriting of identity at the deepest level.

If you don’t know who you are, start with your name, because the world knows exactly what it called you before you did.

Where Did I Come From?

This is something I understood long before I had the words to explain it, but understanding isn’t the same as acceptance.

Before I tell you about my name, I’m going to tell you about my father’s.

We’re going to focus on given names for now, though family names are equally as powerful. I’ll write about them another day.

In 1945, Michael Wayne (my father) was born to Mary Ann and Charles Edward—a practicing Catholic couple living in Baltimore, Maryland.

He was the fourth of four children—though her third child was stillborn or died shortly after birth.

According to all the bits and pieces I got from my father and his tight-lipped relatives, I understood his mother Mary to be deeply loving and of Italian descent, married to a violent Irish-American alcoholic.

My father’s father, Charles Edward, was said to have worked hard and spent a lot of time at the bars. His friends around the neighborhood called him “Dutch.”

When my dad was 15 years old, his mother was said to have undergone an experimental medical procedure and unexpectedly died on the operating table.

After that, my dad went to live with his mother’s sister and her family. Apparently, he wasn’t all that safe at home with his father.

It was important to my grandmother that my father was brought up strictly in Catholic school his whole life.

His brother Charles Edward Jr. (older by 11 years) and his sister Lavinia Lenore (older by 14 years) didn’t get quite the same treatment as my father did as the unexpected baby.

Mary kept “Wayne”, as she affectionately called him, close. He was Her miracle.

While incredibly creative and jovial, my father was also very studious and serious. Over time, he learned to keep his nature and big ideas largely to himself.

As a left-handed child he’d get scolded at school by the nuns with a whack of the ruler to his knuckles. So he became ambidextrous and compliant.

Dad was referred to as “the love child” at home, and apparently his father absolutely hated him—often accusing his wife of having cheated when returning from the bar in drunken rages, despite unmistakably having his father’s eyes.

After graduation from Mount St. Joseph’s preparatory school, my father joined the United States Air Force—following in the footsteps of his older brother.

While stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi, at 19, my father received word that his father had died.

Lavinia’s second husband, James, and a friend found Charles Sr. in his living room with a gunshot wound to the head, said to be self-inflicted.

After serving as an Air Traffic Controller in Ulm, Germany, during the Vietnam War, my father returned to the United States and enrolled in university.

That’s where he met my mother, Marilyn Joan, and fell in love. More on their story another time.

And Baby Makes Three

My mother’s story is far less tragic. She came from a good Jewish home with devoted parents who remained dedicated to each other until death—an enduring marriage lasting only months shy of 70 years.

Her father, Paul, was born to Lillian and Morris in New York. Her mother, Rae Leah, was born to Gertrude and Nathan—for whom my mother chose my name, Nicole, in her late grandfather’s honor.

While my father was Catholic and my mother was Jewish, both hailing from conservative religious households, my parents were far more liberal.

It was important to my mother that her children were raised Jewish, yet she was fine with also celebrating Christian holidays in the home and with my father’s extended family at theirs. No church though.

Interestingly enough, my grandmother Mary Ann was a devout Catholic, but her mother, Lillian, had converted from Judaism—supposedly after falling in love with a Roman Catholic man.

Another interesting thing about my familial heritage is that, while never having met until after their children were to be married, both of my mother’s grandfathers immigrated to the United States from Kiev—fleeing persecution during the pogroms.

In Jewish tradition, I was assigned a Hebrew name at birth in addition to my English name: Nahama Rena, אֲנִי נַחֲמָה רֵנָה

Now with all of that out of the way, let’s get into what the names mean and how the spiritual weight of names can tell us much about a baby’s divine purpose.

Michael Wayne: Vessel of Divine Strength

Michael Wayne is a name layered with meaning—one that reflects both divine authority and earthly resilience.

Michael (מִיכָאֵל) means “Who is like God?”—a rhetorical question that underscores the incomparable greatness of the Divine.

My father struggled to fully embody his understanding in his physical lifetime, struggling with alcoholism, depression, and self doubt.

In Abrahamic texts, Archangel Michael is the warrior of heaven, the protector against evil, the one who carries the sword of justice and leads God’s armies in spiritual warfare.

Wayne, derived from Old English, traditionally means “wagon” or “cart”. But beyond its literal meaning carries a deeper metaphor. The wagon is a vessel of movement, a carrier transporting something of value from one place to another.

In this sense, Wayne signifies a bearer, one who delivers what must be carried forward. I accept that something as being the fruit of his seed. His children.

Together, the name Michael Wayne embodies the concept of a warrior who carries divine purpose. Not just a fighter in a literal sense, but more so a vessel.

A quiet bearer of knowledge and wisdom.

A protector, even in his failures.

A guide, even in his struggles.

That is who he was meant to be, and in many ways who he still is—through me. His mortal mission may have ended, but mine has not. Here I Am.

Of course in a spiritual sense, we are all vessels of the Holy Spirit—realized or not.

Nahama Rena: The Journey from Consolation to Joy

Where Michael Wayne speaks of divine strength, Nahama Rena speaks of the beauty of healing and transformation.

Nahama (נַחֲמָה) means “comfort, consolation.” It is a name of healing, resilience, and divine compassion.

In Jewish tradition, Nahama is often associated with God’s promise to bring comfort to His people after suffering.

“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.” (Isaiah 40:1)

It is a name that speaks to those who carry the wisdom of sorrow and turn it into solace for others.

Rena (רֵנָה) means “joy, rejoicing, song.” It represents spiritual exaltation, celebration, and the release of burdens.

In Psalms, Rena is used to describe songs of triumph and divine praise, reflecting a soul that has found peace and is singing in gratitude.

Together, Nahama Rena tells a story: from grief to renewal, from suffering to celebration.

It is a name for someone who carries both depth and light, one who has walked through the valley of sorrow and emerged not bitter, though hardened.

This name carries the essence of transformation—the journey of turning wounds into wisdom, tears into testimony, and pain into power.

It represents the sacred cycle of healing: to first receive divine comfort, and then to become a source of joy for others.

Where my father’s work ended, mine continues.

Few ever explore the spiritual nature of their own name, though many spend their lives wondering what God wants from them.

With a little bit of research, a fair amount of reflection, and a deep dose of wisdom, much can be revealed through one’s name.

If you are ready to uncover the meaning behind your name—to decode what has always been there, waiting to be known—reach out. I will be happy to help you see what has been written in the book of life for you all along.