Identity

Doctor, Lawyer, Mother, Minister, Wife, Prostitute, Indigent, Addict, Sister, Best Friend, Owner

Titles make life easy. They help us identify the positions people hold in life. Titles give us the standard that we should hold a person to. Titles provide the framework of the qualifications of the person that holds the title. You know what to expect from someone based on the title they hold. We wouldn’t expect a doctor to go into a courtroom and argue a legal case and we would not hold an addict to the same standard as we hold a CEO to.

But what happens when we use those titles to place worth on the individuals that do or don’t hold them? What happens when we esteem the doctor over the addict, or the wife over the sister? What does that tell either individual? We tell them that based on what they or don’t do determines their worth and what’s more important is their title instead of their identity. We teach people how to treat us based on how we treat ourselves. And if we allow what we’ve done or what we do to set the stage for how we should be treated, we have already done a disservice to the One who’s created us. We’ve forever identified ourselves by our actions instead of the substance of who we are.

As a teenager, it was difficult for me to ever think about being whole: mentally, emotionally, physically, or spiritually because the only thing I had never known was being broken. I didn’t know what it felt like to achieve wholeness in spite of the titles I held. I let those achievements replace true healing. As I obtained degrees, climbed the corporate ladder, became a wife and a bonus mother to a wonderful child, I began to believe that I could hide my brokenness behind all of these things. At the time, I figured that being whole was not as important as accumulating all of that “stuff” so it didn’t matter that I was hurting on the inside while celebrating on the outside. I had not wrapped my mind around the concept of my identity because I had settled for titles instead. I hadn’t realized that a title was what people called you but your identity was what you answered to.

I answered to “promiscuous, broken, failure, incomplete, and less-than” for so long that a title filled a gap I had not gone to God about. I was placing a name tag over a hole in my heart. The definition of identity is: the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. I had not disconnected who I was from what I did so I thought that’s the identity I had to carry. I missed that what God had to say about me was true regardless of what my titles said or even what my actions said. His thoughts about me were constant, in the face of my bad choices and my futile attempts are trying to fix myself. 

I hadn’t taken to the time to study 1 Peter 2:9 that says But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

I didn’t understand 2 Corinthians 5:17 that teaches Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

I couldn’t grasp Ephesians 4:24 that reads And to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.

It took surrendering what I did to realize who I was. When I stripped away all of the titles, the labels people had given me and the ones I placed on myself to leave me with my heart. Who I was on the inside was the one that is beloved by Christ, chosen for His enjoyment, and a member of His family (among other things). I wasn’t the girl who had an abortion and couldn’t get pregnant, I wasn’t the girl who used sex to get what could only be found in love, and I wasn’t the girl who was broken that searched for fulfillment in money.

NO, I was the woman that God loved before He formed the world.

You see, I was always conscious of what I had done but didn’t take into consideration what He had done before I ever thought about choosing something other than who I was. Titles are good for classification but not identifying, let’s be sure that we’re the proper tools for their proper use. God gives you your identity; your actions give you your titles.

His words are always greater than your actions!

With All My Love,
Mrs. Truscott