Permanent Ink
Hey Friends,
This week’s blog is going to be a vulnerable one. My young adults group has been going through an identity series in which we are working to be firm in our identities in Christ, and it has been bringing some things into memory for me. Things that I had never addressed or processed fully. We all have the things that we’d rather brush under the rug with an “oopsie” to keep going about our happy, jolly way. Sometimes it’s people, our own reactions, or sometimes careers or hobbies. Sometimes it’s our past sins or struggles. In this specific case, it was my identity.
Like most people, I spent my high school years trying to establish who I was going to be afterwards. A pilot? An author? A college student? I dreamt of many outcomes, but would come to the quick realization that I wasn’t a good fit for any of it because I wasn’t enough as I was. I was too short to fly in the Navy, I was too unorganized to write the book series of my dreams, and I was not in any way, shape, or form, good enough to go to college and make my parents proud. Everywhere I looked, there was someone there to overexplain all the reasons I would fail or bring disappointment to everyone I cared about. It was me. These were all conclusions that I put on myself. These are real ways that I’ve talked myself out of everything. This was just the beginning.
Once you start putting yourself down, it quickly becomes very easy to continue, and it quickly gets out of hand. I too often found myself on the floor of my bathroom sobbing about the failure that I was. I let every single one of those thoughts sit with me every day. I let every hate-filled, grief-soaked thought and accusation seep into my very bones and fill every crack of my identity, and you’d never know because I kept every single one of these thoughts in check and hidden beneath my bubbly personality. “Just because I knew who I really was doesn’t mean everyone else has to.”
Let me ask you this… what happens when the LORD starts to intervene? What happens when God pulls us from the graves we lie in, the graves we knew to be real and final, and He starts to say things like, “I have chosen you” (Ephesians 1:4), “I know who you truly are” (Jeremiah 1:5), “I hear your every cry” (Isaiah 25:8), and “I still love you knowing it all” (Galatians 2:20)? What happens to the lies that held grip on us for so long? When you are starting to break out of what the enemy has spoken over you, he fights back.
I remember the day I found myself yet again on the bathroom floor in a pile of pity and self-loathing. I remember the moment I grabbed a pad of mini green sticky notes, and I remember writing down exactly who I was, a different facet of my identity on each square. I remember that I chose a permanent marker to write it in because I deserved to remember exactly who I was and who I would always be.
Liar…. horrible daughter…. worthless…. terrible friend… empty…. disgusting…. sickly looking…. ugly…. unlovable…. undesirable…. failure…. trash sister…. too angry…. stupid…. broken…. tainted…. disappointment… and so much more.
I hid the pile of sticky notes under my sink, and I would remind myself of them whenever I started to feel otherwise. Until I didn’t. Turns out some paper and permanent ink are no match for The Undefeated King. Turns out that the only thing stronger than permanent ink is the blood of Jesus Christ. Even if all that I had written was true in some aspect, as a daughter of Christ, they were no longer who I was. (Galatians 2:20). He broke down every wall I thought I secured. My foundation crumbled and fell away because it couldn’t stand the pressure of the living God who loves me. He sent me people to call me new names. Names that only God himself knew I needed to hear. He started to rebuild my identity from the inside out until I could no longer justify anything that I had held so firmly to.
If you yourself are in a spot where your “identity” is rooted in your failures, shortcomings, or mistakes, I encourage you to press into your word. Press into Jesus, who gave His very life so that we could be free of these things. Even if all you can say is, “God, I don’t know what to do with this? I don’t know how to let it go or how to believe anything different, and I need you”, leave the door open for Him. “I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” (Revelation 3:20). I have known no greater joy in my whole life than to open the door of my heart to Jesus. He brings a peace like no other, and His promises are as eternal as He is Himself.
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”
“For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
“In Him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.”
Personal Journal Prompts:
What is the first negative thought I tend to believe about myself—and why do I think it has so much power over me?
What am I afraid might happen if I fully let God into this area?
If I truly believed I was chosen, known, and loved—how would my life look different this week?
What is one “new name” I feel God is inviting me to walk in?
