COURAGE, BRAVEHEART

I was out to dinner with my mentor the other day and we got into a conversation about identity. And she asked me how I would describe my identity.

I paused. No one had ever asked me that before and I wasn’t sure I had an answer.

I immediately said I was a child of God… “Okay. Got that. And?”

And…

Nothing. Crickets. I know it sounds silly to say, but I was a bit stumped by the question. What did she mean? Maybe I needed to go back and look up the word identity again.

So I started talking about things I love. “Well, I love to write. And I love my family. And…” Again, she stopped me and said, “Stef, those are things you like or love, but those don’t describe who you are. Why do you think you’re not able to connect those things to who you are?”

And so I sat for a few moments while she quietly waited.

You see, I’m not sure why I was disconnecting myself or disassociating with qualities. Let me explain more. Instead of saying, I am a writer. I said, I like to write. Instead of saying, I am a daughter and a sister. I said, I love my family. Instead of saying I am a kind and compassionate person and friend. I said, I love my friends.

I felt stupid. Like this was an easy exercise I was failing miserably. But more than that, it really got me thinking about identity.

Identity is defined as who you are, the way you think about yourself, the way you are viewed by the world and the characteristics that define you. I started doing a little bit of research on Identity and those who studied it intently and this is what I found. A man named Erik Erikson (1902-1994) became one of the earliest psychologists to take an explicit interest in identity. Not only are his thoughts on identity fascinating, but He himself is a fascinating individual, with a rather interesting story. Feel free to click on the link attached to his name to learn more about him.

The Eriksonian framework rests upon a distinction among the psychological sense of continuity, known as the ego identity (sometimes identified simply as “the self”); the personal idiosyncrasies that separate one person from the next, known as the personal identity; and the collection of social roles that a person might play, known as either the social identity or the cultural identity.

Erikson’s work, in the psychodynamic tradition, aimed to investigate the process of identity formation across a lifespan. Progressive strength in the ego identity, for example, can be charted in terms of a series of stages in which identity is formed in response to increasingly sophisticated challenges. The process of forming a viable sense of identity for the culture is conceptualized as an adolescent task, and those who do not manage a resynthesis of childhood identifications are seen as being in a state of ‘identity diffusion’ whereas those who retain their initially given identities unquestioned have ‘foreclosed’ identities (Weinreich & Saunderson 2003 p7-8).

On some readings of Erikson, the development of a strong ego identity, along with the proper integration into a stable society and culture, lead to a stronger sense of identity in general. Accordingly, a deficiency in either of these factors may increase the chance of an identity crisis or confusion (Cote & Levine 2002, p. 22).

A psychological identity relates to self-image (one’s mental model of oneself), self-esteem, and individuality. Consequently, Weinreich gives this definition of identity:

“A person’s identity is defined as the totality of one’s self-construal, in which how one construes oneself in the present expresses the continuity between how one construes oneself as one was in the past and how one construes oneself as one aspires to be in the future”; this allows for definitions of aspects of identity, such as: “One’s ethnic identity is defined as that part of the totality of one’s self-construal made up of those dimensions that express the continuity between one’s construal of past ancestry and one’s future aspirations in relation to ethnicity”.

That’s a lot of construing if you ask me. But for real…fascinating right?

How do you construe yourself? What is it that you believe defines you? Is it your job? How much money you make? How big your house is? What car you drive? Too often we get caught up in believing that it’s things that define us. We identify with things so much, I think we forget that they are NOT our identity.

Or maybe it is in relation to other people. Do you have people in your life who proclaim things over you? Sometimes good things. Other times bad things. You are a good friend. Check. You are un-nurturing. Cut. You are a hard-worker. Check. You are selfish. Cut.

But the bigger question is who does God say you are? What is the identity He proclaims over you? Well I’ll tell you. He calls you His beloved. His child. His heir. His chosen one. His son or daughter. His creation. He tells us who we are.

Maybe you’ve forgotten this. Maybe you’ve been believing lies. Maybe you’ve never thought about this. Or have never been told this before.

But friend, be affirmed that you are valued and loved because of WHOSE you are and not what you do, how you look, how successful you are or what you offer the world. It’s not about that. You are good enough to come just as you are. And where we lack? Christ fills in the gaps. We should be spending way more time focusing on what’s inside of us rather than what’s going on with our exterior.

Keep working hard. Keep building up. Keep learning wisdom and growing strong. Keep loving yourself and others. Keep pushing away the lies and seeking boldly after the truth. Keep planting your roots deeper and deeper. But don’t stop believing that you are enough. Because the Lord has deemed it so.

Take time to ponder this. To dive into the word and see what the Lord says about your identity. To get to know Him personally so you can see yourself through the frameworks He has defined.

Be happy in the skin you’re in. Be brave amongst the critics. Be blind and deaf to the comparisons. Be bold and proudly stand in who you are. For there are far too many people confused and unsure (🙋🏼‍♀️ yep, me too some days) of who they are. And there are far too many people willing to step up and tell you who you are if you’re unsure. But we are not meant to be defined by others views or opinions and how they see us. We are meant to be defined by the Lord’s opinion and how He sees us.

And really, that’s the only opinion that matters.