true identity

 To the one searching for identity,

First, can I tell you that my heart breaks for you? There's nothing quite like that lost feeling,
the feeling that you don't truly know who you are supposed to be, that you're somehow "not right" and don't fit. It swallows up every other thought and feeling, makes you feel more alone than you could ever imagine. If you don't fit in your own skin, how can you ever fit with other people? You somehow feel wrong, and that leads to feeling like everything you do is wrong and can never be right.

And then, a group comes along. It seems like they have all the answers--they tell you that you don't feel like you fit because you've been in the wrong body all along. If you were born a female but you don't like "girly" things, it must mean you were supposed to be a boy, right? Or if you were born a male and don't show interest in guns and playing in the mud, you must just really be a girl. Not to mention all the ideas of sexual identity-- the confusion that throws in is almost beyond belief, let alone comprehension.

Can I let you in on a secret?

Your identity doesn't depend on your likes and dislikes. It doesn't depend on how others perceive you. It doesn't even depend on how you feel, as frustrating as that may be. Your identity isn't tied up in your sexuality or your thoughts or even how you view yourself. Your identity is who you were created to be.

And honestly, that's a hard thing for everybody. It may not seem like it. You may look around and think that everyone else knows who they are supposed to be and where they fit in the world, but I promise you that there are more people searching than you would think. There are girls who look in the mirror each morning and hate what they see. There are boys who think they can never be macho enough to be respected. There are men and women who don't feel like they will ever fit the definition of what they are "supposed" to be.

And that's entirely normal.

We live in a broken world with broken people. That can only lead to broken ideas--ideas of what we are supposed to be like, how we are supposed to look, what we are supposed to think. None of those things determine your identity or your worth.

Your identity was set when God knit you together in your mother's womb. You were "fearfully and wonderfully made," as David wrote in Psalm 139, and God calls you His masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10). Your true identity can be found only in Him, in doing the things He mapped out for you a long time ago. He knows you inside and out because He created you.

That doesn't mean you're perfect; none of us is. But despite your imperfections, God loves you. Through your imperfections, He can and will work to do amazing things you could never imagine...but you have to trust Him first.

You have to trust that God can handle all your broken pieces. You have to be willing to give Him the pain and the heartache and the anger and realize that He can take all the ugly parts. He can deal with the parts of your life that you keep hidden from the rest of the world, the parts that hurt too much to show other people. He asks you to give it all to Him, for no reason other than that He loves you.

He loves you. Despite the brokenness, despite the hurt. He loves you to the very core of who you are, because He's the One who created you. He wants you to run to Him, to hide yourself in Him. He wants you take all your pain. He wants to give you joy in place of tears and beauty instead of ashes. He can take what you think is the wreckage of your life and put everything back together to make something incredible.

But you have to be willing to give up yourself. You have to be willing to stop searching for identity in this broken world and instead find it solely in Him. He loves you despite all your flaws, but He loves you too much to leave you as you are. You have to be willing to give Him all your brokenness and be willing to let Him replace it with wholeness in Him.

Beautiful, broken one--you are so loved by the God who made you. His people may not be good at showing that sometimes, but that's because all of us are broken and in the middle of being made whole, too.

Just like you.