For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book. (Psalm 139:13-16)
"J" is for Janina. Back in 1970, or maybe the late 1960s, my parents found the name "Janina" in a book. They thought it was pretty, and so that became my name. It's an uncommon name in the United States, though I hear it's more common in Poland and Germany. Someday when I vacation in those countries, I'll have to check out the gift shops and finally get a keyring with my name on it.
Sadly for my parents, I never liked the name Janina as much as they did. It was too different, too weird. No one else was named Janina. No one knew how to pronounce it. No one knew how to spell it. (If only I had a dollar for every time someone has called me Juanita, or spelled my name with a G ...)
How I longed to be an Amy or a Jennifer or a Sandy or a Katie or ... anything normal! How I longed to find my name on a keyring at a gift shop!
The summer I was 14, I worked at our church's Vacation Bible School. A group of us teenagers helped with the young kids, and there were a lot of "T" names among us: two Tammys (actually a Tammy and a Tammie), a Tonya, and a Tara, if I remember right. My friend Staci and I had the only two names in our group that didn't start with "T," so we became "Taci" and "Tina" for the week, just so we could all have "T" names. Ah, teenagers. (T-nagers?)
Anyway, it was such a wonderful week. For once in my life, I had a normal name.
The following week, I went off to summer camp in Colorado for three weeks. I didn't want to be Janina, so I kept my new "T" moniker and told everyone to call me Tina. And for three lovely weeks, I had a normal name.
But it got awkward the next year with my brother and sister accompanied me to camp, and I had to explain that they needed to call me "Tina" for the next three weeks. And it got even more awkward when a couple of the campers started going to my school the next year, and I had to explain that "Tina" was just my camp name, and that they should start calling me "Janina" now.
My sophomore year of high school, my brother started calling me "Ninna," and a few of my friends picked up the name and started calling me that too. While I was still Janina to my teachers and most students, I was Ninna among my close friends. I liked having a non-Janina name, so when I went to Tulane after graduating high school, I told everyone to call me Ninna.
Well, that was weird. What had been a kind of term of close friendship became what a bunch of new people called me. But I'd decided that would be my name, and it was too late to change it.
When I transferred to Mary Baldwin College after that first semester at Tulane, I went ahead and told my roommate to call me Ninna. She misunderstood and called me Nina. I corrected her, but she forgot, and when we went to dinner that first night, she introduced me to all of her friends as Nina.
I didn't correct her that time. In that moment, I decided I liked being Nina. I didn't have that intimate feel that Ninna had, and it wasn't a totally different name like Tina. And so I've been Nina ever since ... except for the six months that I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, at which time I was Waterfall. (I'm still Waterfall to the people who only know me through the hiking community.)
With each name change, I felt like I had a slightly different personality. Janina was quiet and shy and awkward; to this day, I associate her with my insecure, borderline-depressed, seventh-grade self. Tina was bubbly, funny, and clever; she was well liked and fit in with the group. Ninna wasn't popular but still had a close-knit group of friends that she treasured dearly, and who helped her get through a disastrous first semester of college. Waterfall is mostly a laid-back and joyful nature-lover. And Nina? She's all of those people, and whoever I am after 50 years of living on this earth.
As I look back at my forays into different names and personalities, I'm half-amused and half-sad. Half-amused because it seems so silly now, to just decide to change my name. Half-sad because I really have spent much of my life trying to forget that awkward, lonely middle-schooler.
Thank goodness God has more grace and patience with my imperfect self than I ever could. He formed me from the moment I was conceived, and he continues to form me through all these phases of life, and he will certainly continue to form me until the day I see him face to face.
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book. (Psalm 139:13-16)
"J" is for Janina. Back in 1970, or maybe the late 1960s, my parents found the name "Janina" in a book. They thought it was pretty, and so that became my name. It's an uncommon name in the United States, though I hear it's more common in Poland and Germany. Someday when I vacation in those countries, I'll have to check out the gift shops and finally get a keyring with my name on it.
Sadly for my parents, I never liked the name Janina as much as they did. It was too different, too weird. No one else was named Janina. No one knew how to pronounce it. No one knew how to spell it. (If only I had a dollar for every time someone has called me Juanita, or spelled my name with a G ...)
How I longed to be an Amy or a Jennifer or a Sandy or a Katie or ... anything normal! How I longed to find my name on a keyring at a gift shop!
The summer I was 14, I worked at our church's Vacation Bible School. A group of us teenagers helped with the young kids, and there were a lot of "T" names among us: two Tammys (actually a Tammy and a Tammie), a Tonya, and a Tara, if I remember right. My friend Staci and I had the only two names in our group that didn't start with "T," so we became "Taci" and "Tina" for the week, just so we could all have "T" names. Ah, teenagers. (T-nagers?)
Anyway, it was such a wonderful week. For once in my life, I had a normal name.
The following week, I went off to summer camp in Colorado for three weeks. I didn't want to be Janina, so I kept my new "T" moniker and told everyone to call me Tina. And for three lovely weeks, I had a normal name.
But it got awkward the next year with my brother and sister accompanied me to camp, and I had to explain that they needed to call me "Tina" for the next three weeks. And it got even more awkward when a couple of the campers started going to my school the next year, and I had to explain that "Tina" was just my camp name, and that they should start calling me "Janina" now.
My sophomore year of high school, my brother started calling me "Ninna," and a few of my friends picked up the name and started calling me that too. While I was still Janina to my teachers and most students, I was Ninna among my close friends. I liked having a non-Janina name, so when I went to Tulane after graduating high school, I told everyone to call me Ninna.
Well, that was weird. What had been a kind of term of close friendship became what a bunch of new people called me. But I'd decided that would be my name, and it was too late to change it.
When I transferred to Mary Baldwin College after that first semester at Tulane, I went ahead and told my roommate to call me Ninna. She misunderstood and called me Nina. I corrected her, but she forgot, and when we went to dinner that first night, she introduced me to all of her friends as Nina.
I didn't correct her that time. In that moment, I decided I liked being Nina. I didn't have that intimate feel that Ninna had, and it wasn't a totally different name like Tina. And so I've been Nina ever since ... except for the six months that I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail, at which time I was Waterfall. (I'm still Waterfall to the people who only know me through the hiking community.)
With each name change, I felt like I had a slightly different personality. Janina was quiet and shy and awkward; to this day, I associate her with my insecure, borderline-depressed, seventh-grade self. Tina was bubbly, funny, and clever; she was well liked and fit in with the group. Ninna wasn't popular but still had a close-knit group of friends that she treasured dearly, and who helped her get through a disastrous first semester of college. Waterfall is mostly a laid-back and joyful nature-lover. And Nina? She's all of those people, and whoever I am after 50 years of living on this earth.
As I look back at my forays into different names and personalities, I'm half-amused and half-sad. Half-amused because it seems so silly now, to just decide to change my name. Half-sad because I really have spent much of my life trying to forget that awkward, lonely middle-schooler.
Thank goodness God has more grace and patience with my imperfect self than I ever could. He formed me from the moment I was conceived, and he continues to form me through all these phases of life, and he will certainly continue to form me until the day I see him face to face.
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| Janina and her dad, circa 1977. |
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