Identity

I'm having an identity crisis, of sorts. I use the word 'crisis' because it's all a bit uncomfortable, but a better word might be awakening. Or resurrection. It's not exactly a mid-life crisis, or maybe it is, but I'm not about to trade the minivan in for a sports car or abandon my family in search of the 'real me'!

I think my true identity has been there all along - it's just been covered up by who I thought I was, and often by who I thought I was supposed to be. When I was very young, I identified myself as a good girl. I was called a goody-goody and I suspect more than one person found my goodness a bit obnoxious now and then. For most of my childhood (okay, let's be honest - for most of my LIFE leading up to my mid-twenties) I was intently focused on my future identity as a wife and mother. Other pieces of my identity included my success in school, my sense of humour, and the fact that I rarely got in trouble. I was, and am, a daughter, a sister, a Christian.

I spent an immense amount of time thinking about what was missing from my identity, though. I was so consumed by my dreams of marriage and motherhood that I became discontented and bitter. I was angry that God had not come through for me on these fronts - like He's a genie in a bottle, instead of the Creator of the Universe - so I experimented with other identities. I was a lesbian for a while, though I never would have called myself one, and still hesitate to label myself with that identity. A sign, perhaps, of my awareness during that time that I was not living in the light of my true identity. I also experimented with living apart from God. I stopped going to church and numbed myself - desperately denying the growing fear and darkness.

In the years since I finally surrendered to God and acknowledged that life apart from Him was unbearable, I have slowly started to become aware of my truest identity. I have found great joy and healing in being a wife and a mother, but I had to first accept that marriage and motherhood were not essential to my survival, or even my happiness. I am still waking up to the fact that the God who created the universe, in all its intricate, complex vastness, loves me. In fact, He loves me with an infinite and undeniable love - a love that He compares to (but is so much more than) the love of a mother, a father, a jealous lover... a love that died in my place and refuses to let me be content in any place that is not with Him. This is the core of my identity, that I am loved by God.

In the light of this awakening, I have begun to question other pieces of my identity that I always assumed to be true. Thanks, in part, to my gender, my Canadian-ness, and my culturally Mennonite upbringing, I have never been one to rock the boat. I've generally seen that as a good thing - I can get along with almost anyone, and I have a really handy polite mask that I can put on if I strongly disagree with you about anything. I can nod and smile and stuff a wide variety of unpleasant emotions and inconvenient opinions. Once I started embracing my truest identity, however, I started realizing that certain things could not be stuffed. My emotions have become - for me - quite unruly. I cry much more easily than I used to. I have started using words like 'passionate' to describe myself. The closer I have gotten to God, the more heartbroken I have become by the poverty and suffering and injustice in our world. In fact, now that my self-confidence is increasingly less about me and more about God, I find myself starting to care less about how my opinions will be received. I am even starting to embrace my inner activist. I might still feel like apologizing when I speak up, but I will no longer be silent and complacent and passive. I do not know how to go on pursuing a life of comfort, hoarding so much of the world's wealth, when I could have a part in relieving someone else's suffering. In light of God's love for me - for ALL of us - I must start living a life that looks like love.

So, I'm in the process of figuring out what to toss out, and what to take in. Spring cleaning my life in light of my identity. What is love - specifically loving God, and loving others - going to look like, exactly? I'm hoping it's going to look a lot like Jesus. I'm a little terrified, because He caused a lot of controversy and I'm more than a little uncomfortable with that. But I'm also thrilled, because He loves me and I know there's no place I'd rather be!