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Years ago, out of necessity but quite unceremoniously, I started jotting thoughts and reflections from Scripture in my online journal, tagging them “Hephzibah.” This habit of grace has become for me a soul-anchoring practice. I had stumbled, fallen and crawled, making it through a lengthy, brutal and painful season, but my heart was still quite unsteady. I had been shaken down, beaten up, and nearly destroyed. But I didn’t know the extent of the repair or the depth of the restoration I needed.
During the middle of that savage season, the endearing and life-changing name “Hephzibah” was prayed over me by one of the wisest and kindest women I have ever known. One time while she was whisper-praying over me in her gentle before-the-throne-of-God voice, Andrya offered mid-prayer to the Lord, …“may Jill know that you delight in her, that she is your Hephzibah.”
This precious woman had been skillfully and carefully tending to root issues of rejection and abandonment that went a lifetime deep in my soul. Now ruthlessly fertilized because of an epic and unfolding saga in my family of origin, those roots were on the verge of strangling me. That is exactly what had sent me to her. By the time she prayed Hephzibah over me, she had been helping me weekly for quite some time to reach the safety and solidity of shore.
Hoping I wasn’t being irreverent, but knowing how quickly I forget, I opened my eyes during her prayer and silently reached down into my bag to retrieve a pen and paper to jot down: “Hepziba??” In addition to wrongly spelling this new word, I didn’t know where in the Bible this term came from. A stirring of God’s Spirit told me this was a term, a name I needed to understand.
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I learned the name Hephzibah means delight. More specifically, it means, “God’s delight is in me.” I don’t know about you, but I have had to repeat that truth over and over to push back the lies that come easily to my mind. It’s true, God says of us, His daughters, “My delight is in her. Hephzibah is her name.”
Isaiah 62
“…and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. You shall no longer be termed ‘Forsaken’… but you shall be called ‘Hephzibah, My Delight Is In Her,’ for the Lord delights in you.”
For months after hearing this word, I tried to put this name on daily, but I constantly struggled to remember even the word itself. I’d say to myself, “It starts with an H,” and I was stuck. I wrote “Hephzibah” on a Post-it and folded it into my pocket every day. Consistently, I’d have to pull the paper out to remember it. I would hear myself trying to trigger my memory by saying, “C.S. Lewis’s Edmund. The white witch. Turkish, Turkish something. Turkish…Um.…. Oh yes! That’s it! The word is ‘delight!’”
No doubt in that hard and disorienting season for me, the enemy of my soul wanted nothing more than for me to forget all about Hephzibah. He has agendas and names for us, but I imagine “beloved of God” is one that he hates most.
Since I continued to struggle to remember the name “Hephzibah,” I stopped one stone short of tattooing it on my arm…I engraved it on a ring, covenant-style, and put my “Hephzibah ring” on my right middle finger. I haven’t taken it off in years. Not just because I easily forget, but because sometimes I still struggle to believe. For years, daily I asked the Lord to engrave this truth upon my heart.
Through God’s Word, songs, wise counsel, and circumstances, I began to hear the Lord gently whisper over my soul, “Delight. My delight is in you.” My unsteady heart became steadier every day. For several years, as I struggled to believe and apply this truth, the Lord has been re-tuning my discordant, insecure heart. The melody He’s drawn out is the loveliest of all: His delight is in me.
Many times, I couldn’t remember the name Hephzibah, and I often thought I was failing spectacularly at “putting Hephzibah on” daily as part of my identity in Christ. But the truth is, because of Jesus the name Hephzibah was already branded on a banner over me, one that long ago began waving over my life. His delight is in me.