Call me Anjeli

Mari (Hebrew): Wished for child, gift from God. www.babiesonline.com
(Welsh):Variant of Mary meaning, “star of the sea”, wished for child, sea of rebellion, bitterness
www.thinkbabynames.com
(Hebrew): Uncertain, maybe bitter. babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com
(Japanese):truth (ma) and righteousness (ri). babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com

Anjeli (Sanskrit): gift or offering. babynamesworld.parentsconnect.com

Wished for? Gift? Star of the sea? Bitter? Truth and righteousness? Offering? Ever since I learned how important names are — how the meanings of our names could tell something about who we are — I’ve been crawling all over the google pages looking for the meaning of “Mari Anjeli”.

I’ve found plenty of meanings for Mari. You can see that in the portion above. Some of those meanings suit me, but there are some meanings that I’m not particularly happy about. I mean, bitter? Sea of Rebellion? Who would want to be called that? “Bitter! Come over here! Sea of Rebellion, do you mind washing the dishes?” Come on. I’ll take the Japanese meaning any day.

As for Anjeli… Honestly, I never tried looking for the meaning of “Anjeli”. I would type in “Angeli” in the google search box and wait for the results to pop up. I would get results like “messenger”. So all along, I thought my name “Mari Anjeli” meant “messenger of truth and righteousness” (yeah!) or “wished for messenger” or “bitter messenger” (uh, no thanks). But since I never tried looking for “Anjeli”, I never got the true meaning of my name.

It was only recently (recently meaning a couple of months ago – LOL!) when a friend of mine (friends na pala tayo! Hehe. Yeah!) posted a comment in my friendster profile saying, “ate alam mo po ba na yung pangalan mong ‘anjeli’ ibig sabihin ay ‘gift’ o kaya naman ay ‘offering?’ ganda noh te?” that I realized the true meaning of my name. Whoa. So I’m not a messenger. I am a gift. I am an offering.

I am an offering of truth and righteousness. I am a wished for offering, a wished for gift. And, okay. Maybe sometimes I am a bitter offering. But still, I am an offering.

Yesterday, Kuya Paul shared about the woman and her alabaster jar. How she just poured out everything in worship at Jesus’ feet. The story struck my the deepest of my spirit and my soul once again. My heart’s cry to the Lord that morning was, “Lord, I want to make that kind of offering!” And then He told me, “You are that offering, Anjeli.”

Anjeli. Nobody really calls me that. Nobody except my parents, my parents’ officemates, my relatives in the US, and sometimes Shiela, Adrian, Kuya Bernard, Cristina Joy (who calls me miss anjeli) and Ate Nevs (who on the other hand calls me teacher anjeli). But everybody else calls me Mari. But it might be nice if more people would start calling me Anjeli. So that I would be reminded that I am an offering.

So, call me Anjeli.