Identity Crisis

Today as I was running I was thinking about some interactions I’ve had with friends lately and I kept coming back around to this idea of how hard our internal identity is to shake or change, but how we can look so different from that identity to those around us.

What really is our identity anyway? Especially since it can be so different to so many different people. To some people I’m a teacher and to them that’s all I live and breathe. Other people see me as a book lover because they’ve witnessed my extensive collection of books, some know me as the musician or girl who loves children, some people might even see me as an athlete. I don’t know that I always see myself as those things though.

This one line from a specific conversation keeps playing over and over in my mind from a friend,while we were playing ping-pong along the lines of me just being a natural athlete. (I’m not very good at ping-pong by the way, I just had a couple shots of ‘beginners luck’.) I’ve slowly come to realize there are people in this world, that actually see me as an athlete because that is a part of my life they see. They haven’t experienced all the other sides of me nor do they know the entirety of my past. Some of you reading this, are like “Well, duh your an athlete”. I played multiple sports in high school, kept playing pick-up in college and still pretend I like to run. To me though, that was an earth shattering realization.

I can’t be a natural athlete. I’m barely athletic. I read books for fun and play the piano to relieve stress. That’s the background noise in my head every time the thought of my being an athlete surfaces.

My internal dialogue and identity is so ingrained and entwined with the whole rest of my past, I failed to see in myself things that were so clear to other people. 25 year old me still encompasses part of my identity from when I was 6 years old. They didn’t met me at 6, they met me at 16 or 20 or 24. Growing up, the 53 other classmates I had in my life for 13 years didn’t label me as the jock. I was the nerd and the band geek. It didn’t matter that as I we got older I added 3 varsity sports to my schedule or showed livestock at the fair. To them, I was the nerd and the band geek. So to me, even at age 25, approaching my 7 year high school reunion, having gone to school for agriculture, I am still just the nerd and the band geek because that was who I was at 6.

It’s crazy how tightly we can hold on to how others have seen us in the past or how we let others view of us shape how we see ourselves. Even when these identities might be ones we want to let go of. I now fully embrace my inner nerd (sometimes try to hid my musical talents because stage fright…). Think of how crazy different our lives could be though if we didn’t learn to let our view of ourselves grow with us, even though some people around us keep their image of us frozen in time.

Not seeing myself as an athlete, probably isn’t really that big of a deal in the grand scheme of life, but what if I didn’t see myself as…

• Patient.
• Loving.
• Kind.
• Filled with goodness or gentleness.
• Clothed with strength and dignity.
• Covered in grace .
• Filled with joy.
• Forgiven and free.

Those are some pretty big things to be missing out on! Oh and by the way, God tells us that when we are his children, they get to be apart of our identity because those are some of his gifts to us.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”

Gifts named in Galatians 4:22-23

“She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come.”

Proverbs 31:25

All the countless other references about God’s grace being extended to us.

Ephesians 1:4-7, Acts 15:11, Romans 6:14, James 4:6

Forgiven and Free –

Romans 6:22, Romans 8:2, Matthew 9:5, James 5:15

What happens when we as a church body aren’t self aware enough to realize that we aren’t letting God’s identity of us define us internally? Sometimes we might even do a good enough job at letting some of these traits shine on the outside because we only let people see the surface levels of our life. We aren’t letting his gifts really serve their purpose though if they only live at surface level in our lives. We aren’t just selling ourselves short when we do this, we are selling the world short because everyone else is missing out on the blessing that pour from our lives. We need to work with God to let ourselves see and identify ourselves through his eyes.

I am just as guilty as the next when it comes to accepting God’s gifts as part of my identity. I still remember being confused when someone told me they saw me as a joyful person, because that again, was not part of my internal identity. I wasn’t bubbly all the time. I think I’m normally pretty mellow, boring some might even say. That didn’t exude joy to me. In my moments of reflection upon that conversation later I realized I had my definition of God’s joy a little off, and slowly, I started to see the ways joy was really a part of who I am. Recognizing that simple fact was one of the biggest shifts in the beginning of a season where I really grew closer to God and realizing even on tough days, I still have the ability to choose joy because it is a part of who I am. I even have a sign painted for my living room wall to help me remember that fact. In fact, I keep glancing at as I write this.

So I ask this as not only a challenge to whoever reads this, but also to myself. As we embark upon this new school year or new seasons of life or new friendships or just our normal everyday –

Who are you going to let define you? The world and your past or God's love and mercy through the scriptures? 

With lots of love,