More Than A Name…

Before I was Megan, I was Faith.

For a long time, I thought those were simply two names belonging to the same person at different points in my life.

I don't think that anymore.

I've come to believe that names can carry something deeper than we realize. Sometimes they become part of the story God is writing long before we understand what the story means.

God knew me before I was born.

Before I ever took my first breath, before I was placed in my mother's arms, before anyone called me Megan, He knew me.

He knew my name.

And eventually, I began to realize that maybe He had been speaking pieces of my identity over me through both of the names I was given.

My birth mother named me Faith.

I didn't know the full story behind that name until much later in life.

She held us after we were born.

Before we were ripped from her arms, she had given us the names she chose for us.

Faith.

And Hope.

But the story didn't end there.

The adoption agency told my birth mother that we would keep the names she had given us. She was also told that we had been taken to a completely different state.

That wasn't true.

We were actually right here.

One city away from each other.

The family who adopted us gave us new names.

I became Megan.

My sister became Heather.

For years, I simply knew those as our names.

But now, when I look back, I can't help but wonder if God saw something in those names that none of us could see yet.

Because God was never surprised by any of this.

He knew.

He knew the little girl named Faith would one day become Megan.

He knew the little girl named Hope would soon be named Heather and that she would grow into a woman whose life would carry both beauty and loss.

He knew every part of the story before we ever lived it.

But I've come to realize that Hope was never just a name.

Because of Christ, even in the deepest loss, I still have hope.

The hope that death is not the end.

The hope that because of Jesus, I will see my sister again.

The hope that one day, I won't have to remember her from photographs, stories, or the ache of missing her. One day, I will stand beside her again. And this time, there will be no goodbye.

I will live alongside her for eternity.

That is why the name Hope means so much more to me than a name.

It is a promise I cling to.

It is the hope of heaven.

It is the hope that what was lost here is not lost forever.

And maybe that's why I can't help but see God's fingerprints all over the names we were given.

He knew the little girl named Faith.

He knew the little girl named Hope.

He knew they would one day become Megan and Heather.

He knew one sister would carry the meaning of a pearl and the other would carry the name of a flower.

He knew there would be beauty.

He knew there would be loss.

And He knew that even in the middle of that loss, there would still be Hope.

He knew every part of the story before we ever lived it.

And He knew that one day I would need to understand that my identity was never something the world had the authority to take from me.

There is someone God placed in my life who has a way of speaking things over me that I don't believe are accidental.

She's one of those people who, when she speaks, I know I need to listen.

One day, she talked to me about names.

She reminded me that names in the Bible were often more than just names. God renamed people. He called people by names that carried meaning. Their names sometimes reflected who they were, who they were becoming, or what God was doing in their lives.

And then she told me something that changed the way I looked at my own name.

She had written my sister, Heather, a beautiful handwritten letter.

In that letter, she talked about a forest fire.

After a fire tears through a forest, everything can look dead. Burned. Destroyed.

But sometimes, after all the destruction, a single flower will push its way through the ashes.

Something beautiful grows where it looks like nothing ever could again.

And she said that's what she saw when she looked at my sister.

Heather.

A flower.

Beauty rising from ashes.

Resilience.

Strength.

A warrior.

Purpose.

Something still alive after everything that tried to destroy it.

I don't think I'll ever forget that picture.

Because suddenly, her name felt like more than a name too.

so, I looked up the meaning of my name.

Megan means pearl.

And for some reason, that hit me differently than it ever had before.

I didn't discover it when life was easy.

I discovered it after I had walked through some of the darkest places of my life.

After the things that were done to me as a child.

After my innocence was taken.

After the choices I made later in life.

After walking down paths I never thought I would walk.

After believing lies about myself for so long that they started to sound like the truth.

There was a time when I believed I was too damaged.

Too dirty.

Too far gone.

I believed that after everything that had happened to me, and everything I had done myself, God could never look at me and see something beautiful.

I thought maybe I had become everything the darkness had told me I was.

Then I surrendered.

Completely.

And in that surrender, God began reminding me who I actually was.

Not who my past said I was.

Not who my trauma said I was.

Not who my mistakes said I was.

Not who the enemy whispered I was.

The truth is “I am His.”

And then I thought about my name.

Megan.

Pearl.

And suddenly, it felt like God was whispering something back to me.

You are “My pearl.”

A Pearl Is Formed Because Something gets In

A pearl doesn't begin as something perfect.

Something gets inside the oyster.

An irritant.

Something that doesn't belong there.

And instead of the oyster simply being destroyed by it, layer after layer forms around that irritation.

Over time, something beautiful is created.

The thing that entered as an irritant becomes part of the process that forms the pearl.

And I can't help but see myself in that.

There are things that got into my story that never should have been there.

Things done to me that were never God's will.

Pain I didn't ask for.

Trauma I didn't deserve.

Choices I wish I could go back and change.

Mistakes I made.

Seasons where I wandered so far into darkness that I didn't know how I would ever find my way back.

But God.

He didn't waste my story.

He didn't call the darkness beautiful.

He didn't tell me that what happened to me was okay.

He redeemed what He never intended for me in the first place.

Layer by layer, He began covering the places I thought would forever define me.

Grace over shame.

Truth over lies.

Healing over wounds.

Forgiveness over guilt.

Identity over insecurity.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I realized something:

I am not my past.

I am not what was done to me.

I am not the worst thing I've ever done.

I am not the things the enemy whispered over me.

I am not disqualified because I have scars.

I belong to Christ.

The Bible tells us that in Christ, we are a new creation.

And maybe that's what God was trying to remind me of when I finally understood the meaning of my name.

He knew.

He knew the little girl named Faith.

He knew the woman who would become Megan.

He knew every wound.

Every mistake.

Every tear.

Every wrong turn.

Every moment I would wonder if I was too far gone.

And He knew there would come a day when I would need to hear His voice louder than every voice that told me I wasn't enough.

You are Mine.

You are forgiven.

You are a new creation.

You are not your past.

You are My pearl.

Maybe the Names Were Never an Accident

My birth mother gave me the name Faith before she knew the woman I would become.

My adoptive family gave me the name Megan before they knew the story I would live.

And somewhere between those two names, God was writing a story that only He could see.

Faith.

Megan.

Faith means trusting in what we cannot yet see.

A pearl is formed slowly, beneath the surface, where no one can see the process happening.

Maybe that's what my life has been.

Faith beneath the surface.

God working in places I couldn't see.

Beauty being formed in places I thought were only broken.

And maybe that's why I can't look at my name as simply a name anymore.

Before I knew who I was, God knew.

Before I knew my story, He knew.

Before I knew how deeply I would need redemption, He already knew the cross would be enough.

Before I ever understood what it meant to be His daughter, He already knew my name.

Faith.

Megan.

Two names.

One life.

And a God who was there before the beginning, who stayed through every dark chapter, and who is still writing the story.

Maybe before I ever became Megan…

God was teaching me how to have Faith.

And that's where the name of this little corner of the internet began.

Heather—the flower.

Megan—the pearl.

The Flower & The Pearl.

Two sisters. Two names. Two meanings that became woven into one story.

You'll hear more about the flower in another entry—the story of my sister, Heather, and the beauty and loss woven into her life. I'll share more about the woman behind that name, her incredible gift for storytelling, and the words she left behind.

One of the reasons I created this space is so that her voice doesn't have to end with her story.

I want to use this website to help share her writing, tell her story, and, when possible, help bring her beautiful work into the world and give others the chance to experience the gift she had with words.

Her story deserves to be remembered.

Her words deserve to be read.

And her flower deserves to keep blooming.

So if you see the name The Pearl & The Flower throughout this website, now you know where it came from.

It came from two sisters.

One pearl.

One flower.

And a story that God was writing long before either of us knew the names we would one day carry.

-Megan