what's in a name?

Back in July I found a book at the thrift store that peaked my interest,

and because of the way my mind works,

my first thought was is that a real last name?

Especially with the title, 

I was skeptical. 

I wondered if there was intentional irony or sarcasm at play.

I decided to investigate before investing reading time.

Turns out the the author's name is Malarky. 

And the story was malarky. 

False, presented as true. 

I wonder how many people were turned away from faith by it.

 A few weeks ago I saw a crockpot recipe book at the thrift store.

(We get tons of donations of all kinds. My area of sorting and organizing is books.)

I brought it home.

Last night I picked it up off of the counter to take to a friend

and noticed the authors names.

For a cookbook,

Good and Ranck might be an unfortunate combination!

Tonight as I was thinking about those books and their authors a verse came to mind:

"A good name is to be more desired than great wealth,

Favor is better than silver and gold." Proverbs 22:1

Everything we do (or don't do) has a ripple effect.

Everything. 

I want to be careful with my choices

because reclaiming a good name is an extremely difficult task.

And when people see my name,

I don't want anyone to feel duped or be turned away from Jesus.