identity

Times of transition can be the most challenging times of life- especially when the transition continues and circumstances have not settled. As I go through yet another transition, I feel myself in limbo.

I’m having an identity crisis.

My whole life has been planned up to this point. All I’ve known is school- my identity was in being a student. And I knew how to be a good student; or at least how to live the student life (a.k.a. get by with good-enough grades and spend the rest of my time doing what I want to do). Honestly, that’s how I’ve lived my life up until now.

So now that I don’t know what’s next or what lies ahead, I feel like I don’t know who I am- or what to put my identity into.

This is the perfect time to look to Christ.

When I don’t know what my next week is going to look like, I can look to Him and let Him guide my every footstep, my every breath. I surrender it all to Him- He will show me where I need to be.

I have fallen in love with this community and with Santa Cruz, which, by the way, translates to Holy Cross. I know God brought me here for a reason- just not the reason I thought. He usually operates that way, keeping us guessing and running back to Him for answers. He hasn’t given me one yet, but He has made me aware of the deep healing and cleansing He wants to do in me. As my shame, pain, and self-worth issues have resurfaced through this experience, I am running back to my Creator to remind me of who I really am.

And after I find out and rest in who I really I am, I will know where to go.

God is a protector and provider, and He places our character, our righteousness, above all else; above all circumstances and relationships and locations and jobs and the things we hold so dear and important. He wants us, our whole selves, and nothing less. If He has to knock everything else out of the way to get to us, He will.

Because He loves us.

I have nothing to hold onto but Him- I am His and He is mine. Knowing that, I have nothing to worry or fear going forward. I can step into the journey ahead with confidence, even when problems and issues arise, as they always do. I don’t need to be timid or afraid; I don’t have to hold back my personality or pretend to be someone I’m not. I am finally free.

He will make a way where I don’t see one. I am His child, His beloved, and He will bring me to completion in Him.

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. ~Romans 8:28 MSG

I love the song “Nothing I Hold on To” by Will Reagan- it speaks to how desperate we are for Him and how much we need Him when we can’t see the way:

I lean not on my own understanding

My life is in the hands of the maker of heaven

I give it all to You God

Trusting that You’ll make something beautiful out of me!

I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open.

God never wants us to be someone we’re not- He created us as we are for a reason, even if we sometimes feel like a complete and total mess or mistake. We never need to pretend to be someone else.

Easier said than done.

When I look around, I get so caught up in everyone else. I get caught up in the lives of the people around me- what she is doing and where he is going and how successful she is. I become so absorbed in their lives that I forget how to be my own person (Hint: this is called codependency, and it’s a beast.) How everyone else seems to be living their lives to the full while I am over here standing still and paralyzed- feeling lost, confused, and left behind.

Now, I know this isn’t true and we are all on our own journey. There’s no use in looking around and feeling like a failure because guess what: most everyone else is doing the same thing. We all see from our tinted lenses; mine just happens to be the lens of perfection.

If she is good at this, I must be better or else I am worthless.

If he doesn’t like me, there must be something wrong with me.

Why do I keep chasing this unattainable goal, try to be this person that I never can be?

God’s grace is enough.

While I still don’t understand exactly what God is doing or the path I am supposed to be on, I know that He is a loving Father and He does not punish us: He confronts us with the things that need to be confronted, and then He heals us. He wants us to get well, to become more whole, to become more like Him.

The more we become like Him, the more we become fully ourselves.

I don’t want to be who others think I should be, or even necessarily who I think I should be. I want to be who God says I am, and live fully into that. I still need to figure out what that means, but I know that I am a work in progress and looking outside of Him for answers isn’t going to get me anywhere.

A great blogger I discovered wrote these words:

Your calling is meant for you, not everyone else. Everybody may not get it, and that’s okay. It’s not for them. They weren’t designed for this. You were. God didn’t place it in their heart. He placed it in yours. If we left the purposes and plans of our life in the hands of people, our entire life would be conformed to what people want to see instead of who God made us to be, and that’s just no way to live. ~Brittney Moses (http://brittneyamoses.com)

As I pray for clarity and discernment, the Lord will sustain me and show me where to go next as He reveals more and more of His plans for me, which are so enwrapped and intertwined with my identity and personality. Through trial and error, challenges and failures, I become closer and closer to Him, and therefore closer and closer to myself.

I go forward in courage, empowered by His grace and love for me.