Identity Crisis

When people ask me who I am, I like to have a kind of go-to list of things to pull from.  I'm a teacher, so I belong to that office supply/bookish/lamination-loving group of people called teachers.  I'm a first-born, so I give myself permission to be a little more bossy and fine with being in charge than the average human.  I'm an athlete, so I can identify when other athletes talk about hitting a wall or pulling a quad.  Of course, there's plenty of room for improvement- I wouldn't mind adding "successful gardener" or "avid language learner" to my list of identifiers, but I like to have a few things on hand for easy access. 

There are few questions whose answers can reveal more about a person than

Who/what are you

and

Who is God

The way you answer those questions gives away what you think is important.  If you [Heaven forbid] say "I'm a brunette" or "I'm a waitress", it is immediately apparent the things you find most important are your hair and your job.  (It wouldn't make any difference, by the way, if you said "I'm the blonde by which all other blondes are measured" or "I'm the Surgeon General".) 

But that's what you do, not who you are.  If Ronald Reagan and Channing Tatum are both in the movie business, does that make them the same person?  Consequently, if you are suddenly unable to make that sandwich or perform that surgery, what does that make you?  A nothing?  Now you're identity-less?  That might sound a little dramatic, but what if your identity is being supermom and your kids grow up and move out?  What if you're all about being that awesome husband or wife and the unthinkable happens and you lose that person?

I have two grandmas with severe memory loss.  In their day, they were matriarchs.  They were the ones planning menus for family reunions, never forgetting to send cards for birthdays and anniversaries.  Do they do the same things they always have?  No, but we didn't take away their names and fingerprints just because they can't do the things they used to do.

What about the stuff you have?  I know all you hipster antimaterialism-ists would raise a defensive ruckus saying you aren't attached to your stuff/you shop at thrift stores/music and art are so much more important than Fossil watches, etc. etc.  Great, not everyone is attached to buying brand names.  But don't you feel good when you get over 20 likes on Instagram?  Are you aiming at having 1,000 followers on Pinterest?  Things you have aren't always smaller than a breadbox.  Sometimes they're the size of a reputation or a Twitter feed. 

I haven't mentioned the second question.  Who is God?  What if your answer to that question shed some light on the first question?  Let's posit that there is a God who is all powerful, perfect - you know, all the stuff you have to be to qualify to be God.  Let's also posit that He created everything.  Even if we stopped right there, that helps us with our first question.  It says, "I am not an accident; I am an 'on purpose'".  If you are an 'on-purpose', it would make sense that you have some sort of purpose. 

Who and what and why you are now becomes dependent on something, rather a Someone outside yourself.  This isn't just any someone like Taylor Swift or Napoleon, as great as they are in their own right.  This is an all great, all good God.  Apart from just existing (which would be enough), and creating you (that's a bonus) this great, good God took your record of messy lies, failure, anger, depression, ungratefulness and put that on Jesus so that you could have His clean record.  Not a fair trade, to say the least.  You don't even have to live with an identity of your own record anymore.  You might have to live with a few of the consequences, of course, but it doesn't own you.

But can you deal with that?  Can you unclench those hands hanging onto your rather forgettable identity and cling to the identity you're being handed?  Can you bear to cling to grace - something you didn't manufacture or build with your own two hands?  Something that could even be termed as a -gasp- handout?  Let me tell you from personal experience, it's to your advantage to let go of finding your identity in being a scholar/athlete/multitasker/artist/lemur whisperer.  You will lose games, get an 89.4, drop the spinning plates, choose the wrong color and miscommunicate with the monkey - or you'll forever live in fear of doing so.  Someone unchangeable, unshakeable and wholly sufficient is where you want to hang your identity. 

When you do that, who you are no longer tries to lean on what you have or what you do.  Your identity is now safe from, well, you.

Love you,

Little Miss Sunshine