I have been thinking about this post for quite awhile. I figured it was time to try to get it out of my head (too many things are stuck in there anyway :)
I was never very comfortable with myself growing up. Painfully shy, I remember trying to always fit in but never quite succeeding. I had big glasses, knock-off jelly shoes (or whatever was trendy) and a weird name. Oh, how I wanted my name to be something popular and normal, like Jessica or Jennifer.
Spending an entire childhood trying to fit in leads to an overall pathetic self-esteem. High School was slightly better. By the time I was sixteen, I had a job and a boyfriend. People made plans for after high school, but not me. Looking back, I know I feared the unknown and looming sense of failure. Ten months later, I would become a mother, and a year after that, a wife. All this before I was even 20. And, I tried my best. In my brokenness, I tried to make everything whole.
When I came back to Christ, I began a long journey - a journey of figuring out who I am in Him (which still continues today). All of the past hurts I'd hidden deep, the guilt, and feelings of inadequacy plagued me. I spent a lot of my early and mid-twenties avoiding the real issue. Instead, I dyed my hair every color imaginable. I pierced my nose and eyebrow. I got tattoos. But, much to my disappointment, all of these superficial things never changed me on the inside. It was exhausting carrying around the weight of feeling like I was a huge failure. During this time my husband left me (we were separated for eight months). Slowly, I would begin to heal. Slowly, I would begin to trust God. Slowly, I would begin to see glimpses of the woman God intended me to be. And, scripture began to stitch my heart-wounds closed.
I remember that pit I was pulled from. And, sometimes we need to be reminded. Sometimes, like Peter, I shift my eyes ever so slightly off of Jesus and begin to sink again. There is this song I have been hearing lately by Jason Gray called Remind Me Who I Am. I love the lyrics. Probably because I can so easily relate to them.
"When I lose my way, and I forget my name, remind me who I am. In the mirror all I see, is who I don’t wanna be, remind me who I am. In the loneliest places, when I can’t remember what grace is. Tell me once again who I am to you. Who I am to you. Tell me lest I forget who I am to you. That I belong to you."
And in the simplest terms, who I am is His. I am His. Regardless of what other people think of me, or what I think of myself at times, I am His beloved. And I am in awe of this love that bled out on a cross. A love that was lavished on a wretched sinner. And my biological father may have left before a single candle was placed on a cake, but my Heavenly Father adopted me. He will never leave me nor forsake me. I. AM. HIS. Nothing can ever separate me from His love.
And His love, friends, is amazing.