In sixth grade I changed schools, so I decided to go by my middle name: Nicole. That lasted until homeroom, when I discovered that there were multiple Nicoles in class. Almost as many as there were Ashleys. Since it was too much work to retrain myself to answer to Nicole, I went back to plain old Ashley. Again.

Behind the Scenes
Part of why I hated my name was because there were so many of us. I also hated it because of its meaning. In first grade Sunday school class my teacher looked up the meanings of all our names and wrote them on cute die-cuts to put on the bulletin board. My friend Stephen’s name means crown. Sarah discovered that her name means princess. Elizabeth’s name means God’s promise, and my friend Joshua’s name means Jehovah is salvation.

When my teacher handed me my little die-cut star, I knew that she had fudged things a little bit. She wrote star. Even at 7 years old, I knew what my name meant, and star was not it.

My name means ash tree or “one who dwells in the meadow of the ash trees.” As a kid, it brought to mind images of someone sitting next to a bunch of trees. Not nearly as cool or exciting as God’s promise. I hated it.

Beginning a Journey of Discovery
When I was a student at Focus on the Family Institute two years ago Ray Vander Laan, the founder of “That the World May Know Ministries” and an expert on things regarding the Holy Land, came to speak to my class. He talked about a lot of things that I hadn’t thought about before, but one thing in particular stuck out.

He spoke about our names and what they meant. He told us that our names serve a purpose and encouraged us to research Bible stories from our childhood to find a deeper meaning just by looking at the names. For example, the story of Samson and Delilah takes on a whole new dimension when you understand what their names mean. Samson means brilliant sunlight, and Delilah means to weaken, to oppress. How fitting.

The judge Deborah’s name means “honey bee.” I didn’t connect the biblical meaning until our teacher reminded us that honey is often associated with the taste of God. Deborah literally brought the taste of God back to the Israelites.

But What About Me?
I was disappointed. There was absolutely no possible meaning to my name. My mom named me after a soap opera character. I had no hope for having a name with any sort of biblical meaning like many of my friends’. A seed had been planted in my mind, however. What if there was more meaning to my name than just a tree?

After a few weeks of dwelling on the idea I turned to the Internet. I Googled “ash trees.” I thought I knew a lot about them, because my dad loves trees and made it a point to teach me about them when I was little. But I began discovering small things that I’d never seen before.

The wood of an ash tree is hard. It’s tough. It’s extremely strong. But it’s also extremely elastic. Because of this, ash trees bend very easily: it takes a lot to make them break. In a word, the ash tree is resilient.

It’s also a cousin of the olive tree, which many see as a symbol of peace. On one page I came across a line that I’ll never forget, one that completely changed my already shifting perceptions of this tree that’s my namesake. This page said that ash trees “rain honey on the world.” My mind immediately went back to Ray Vander Laan’s talk when he pointed out Deborah’s name, and the sweet honey reminiscent of the taste of God.

The last bit I found out about ash trees was the fact that people harvest a sugary substance from the sap. This substance is called manna.

A Brand-New Meaning
When I turned to my Bible I found that most meadows were places of sustenance, a place to go in order to be spared from a famine. Meadows were places of peace and abundance.

After all of this I wrote a new definition of my name. Instead of simply ash tree or one who dwells in the meadow of the ash trees, my name took on a new meaning. I wrote: “Ashley: She who rests in a place of sustenance, where she is spared from the famine, a place filled with resilient trees that produce manna and rain honey on God’s people.”

The fact that God cared enough to make my name mean something great is a fact that I hold tightly to, even now . . . especially now. Because no matter what I’m going through, no matter how dark and difficult the night, I always have this reminder.

My name is something I use many times every single day. My name now reminds me that I have a place of sustenance where I can rest peacefully, and that though things come at me with enough force to snap me in half, I will only bend.

Something that I once hated now reminds me of God’s careful hand in my life. And now I love it.