Naked Truth: Identity Lost

 

“So, tell me, if you woke up tomorrow and could do that one thing you’ve always wanted to do, what would it be?”

If I was in a comic strip instead of Diana’s counseling office, this is where you’d sketch a question mark over my head or pencil in chirping crickets. I sat there, unmoving. Unthinking really. Not one coherent thought. Beyond growing my faith and helping people, I couldn’t articulate one personal goal or dream. That’s the moment my lost identity was exposed, bare naked.

After thirty-one years of supporting my husband’s military and civilian careers and raising children and grandchildren, my youngest daughter graduated high school. I was an almost-empty-nester. For the first time in my adult life, freedom and a quiet home were mine. I’d heard this distresses some women but I was ecstatic. My time was my time.

Inundated with ideas and waiting to see the perfect one twinkling on the wall, framed with blinking arrows, I wasted time fretting about wasting time. Opportunities tangled my thoughts until my friend unraveled them with that one question. We peeked back into my childhood to uncover why my identity was wrapped tight in my roles and responsibilities, in what I did.

We found a little girl, voiceless and raised in an alcoholic home, still influencing me. After twenty-three years of experiencing God’s healing, I hadn’t completely stripped a victim mindset or my habit of gaining value by appearance and performance.

We peeled back people-pleasing, approval-seeking layers. False images, carbon copies, and chameleon skin hid my God-given identity. Lugging them into adolescence, marriage and mothering, I lost myself. I forgot to dream beyond changing roles and responsibilities. I didn’t plan past diapers and dinners, pony leagues and prom dresses. Life events and people defined me.

I walked out of Diana’s office smiling and thinking, Wow. I’m more messed up than I thought. Determined to see how unhealthy mindsets dictated my internal dialogue and life choices, I dug deeper. Not to blame, whine, or wallow in self-pity, but to understand my life’s self-defining moments. Those turning points when comments, events, or decisions layered junk on me. Ready to throw off behaviors rooted soul-deep, I thought a lot about image and identity.

Our identity is our individuality. It’s who we are and what makes us different from others. It’s our God-given design. Image is a physical likeness or a mental conception. It’s how we are viewed by others or ourselves. In knowing our true selves, who God created us to be, we find our unique personalities and freedom to express them.

As with all good things, our identity and image have twisted counterparts. They can be mistaken, stolen, or faked. For years, counterfeit images strait-jacketed me. Do you think parts of your true self are bound up and hidden away?

In the coming weeks, you’ll see my bare-it-all response to finding who I really am under fake layers and false identities. It’s connecting dots and untangling thoughts as I experienced them. Fleshed out, squeezed out, and written out. God’s still stripping me soul-deep, at the core of my fearful, selfish nature.

As I let you in on my deepest hurts, I hope you’ll uncover some unhealthy mindsets and see you truly are a new creation when you accept Christ and all He says about you.

Together, as we shed others’ opinions and society’s stereotypes, may you see yourself as God does. Holy, righteous, redeemed for a purpose. Free from guilt, right with God, and valuable beyond human measure.

Bare naked fear, pain, and pride are ugly. But I’m done hiding. How about you? Transparency is risky but it’s healing and freeing.

It’s been two years since Diana asked me a simple, soul-stirring question that sent me on this shameless baring-all journey to uncover my God-given identity. Are you ready to join me? It’s gonna be a wild ride. Peace, my friend.

 

(c) Robin Melvin 2015