I know who I am
Today is the fourth Sunday of advent, the Sunday to reflect on love. And my reflections led me to these things
I know who I am.
It’s been a long journey to get to that statement. A lifetime actually.
I grew up in a faith-based home – I use those words because it felt everything but religious to me. In fact, I truly thought I was exempt from the religious - possibly and purely from the charismatic nature of my faith. (I see all you other closet charismatics)
For as long as I can remember my father has used the phrase “you were born to be loved, not to be right.” It’s been a beacon of my belief system. I fell in love with Jesus. My childhood is sprinkled with moment after moment of knowing the unhindered love of God. Let’s play church with worship and sermons and prayer and all the hallelujahs. Dress up – I’ll be Mary. Worship – I want to dance like David for all of my days. With this lens of love a God of wrath didn’t exist to me– not even through the bible – not when everything spoke to the pursuit of a God of love (a debate best left to another day).
Somehow still somewhere along the way I created an intimate relationship with guilt Maybe it was when an apple fell from a tree, maybe it was the patriarchy, maybe it was 90s culture, maybe I heard that flesh was bad or I needed to be less for God to be more or maybe I just believed a lie despite a truth I was so often told. But Being right and never doing wrong became my beacon. So much so that when I did do wrong – I couldn’t live with myself – I couldn’t sit in my own skin. I would feel tormented in my own thoughts until I ‘confessed’ and was made ‘right’ again (those quotes are because, game note, that’s not true confession). I remember a string of days in my teenage years that turned into an entire season of unrest. I had nightmares every night. So certain was I that they were a result of a wrong in me that I switched where I slept every night – going from room to room seeking rest but really just running away from the one I couldn’t get away from – myself.
In my 20s I moved away from my hometown and discovered 2 things.
1 – the faith I had grown up in created in me an intrinsic knowledge of the love of God. This became apparent to me in a South African airport when I found myself telling a friend questioning the right and wrong of her own faith that she wasn’t born to be right, she was born to be loved” Oh shit, I really believe this stuff for myself. The faith of my parents was merely my Foundation, and I truly believed it for my very own.
2 – guilt was not my friend. The close and intimate way I regarded it didn’t get to change but slowly and surely layer by layer, I began to untether its grip on me. Guilt told me I wasn’t enough. That I didn’t do good. That I wasn’t good. Through some deep soul searching I came to the realization that in my youth I Identified with the thought of being an ugly idiot and I let every failure and rejection that told me these two things push me deeper and deeper into a guilt relationship. In a season of life on the shores of Hawaii – I learned to at least unpeel those layers of lies. I came to a truth of my beauty and intelligence that propelled me forward in life for years. Reaching for confidence beyond those early lies.
In my early 30s I would have said that I knew who I was – I might not have had the words to say it but I had an intrinsic knowledge that I could and should be confident in who I was. Which was a boat of confidence that was only rocked every time I did something wrong. If I am honest that was a season of wonderful days and horrible nights. Because each day I confidently stepped forward with the knowledge that I was beautiful and smart. But each night I was awoken with a fear that somewhere somehow I had done something wrong. I would search the caverns of my mind until I found proof of an instance that proved this lie true – and the unrest of my youth found me once again until I had either rationalized the wrong or made it right again (game note – also not true confession).
At 33 I had my first child, my daughter, and the foundation of who I was began to shake. Motherhood is an easy way to unearth the ghosties, any major life event will do -motherhood just has the added benefit of hormones. Old fears I had tamed and new ones I didn’t know lurked in waiting came at me in a season I so desperately wanted to be confident in my ability to be good and right and exactly what my daughter needed. I sleighed the fears one dragon at a time but mostly learned that motherhood and life in general has nothing to do with getting it right but willingness to be vulnerable in getting it wrong. I hope that’s a value I have taught my own daughter over her first 4 years and the rest of her life. It was a step towards love over right and wrong if not the whole shebang.
I went through a process of identity smack dab in the middle of my 30s. I came to the knowledge that I believed a lie about myself that I was bad. And Oh Shit again if that wasn’t what was at the bottom of this right and wrong over love, I don’t know what was. If I was always right and never did wrong than I could distance myself from this knowledge that I was bad. And every time I did wrong I had this lie to comfort me. But here’s the thing. If God is who I said He was, a God of love, then despite what misconstrued religion might have said instead, my flesh wasn’t indeed bad. I shouldn’t need to be less, for Him to be more. He created and said that it was Good. And no apple should tell me otherwise. And so over the course of 35 years my identity had layer by layer been being revealed to me. Lies have been tossed aside and I have come to this knowledge that I am indeed a Sacred Vessel. Love wins and in every major moment of my life the sacred has been knocking to be seen, known, and unrevealed.
There’s lots I have to say about the sacred in this life – the way that hope and grief pave the way for it. The way it reflects goodness in all it’s forms. The way that every major life moment invites the sacred. But that’s what comes after the comma of this first note.
I don’t know where you are in the knowledge of who you are but I hope you won’t cast aside your confidence. I hope you know that you are good. And I hope you know that love wins.
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