I Don’t Know Who I Am Anymore

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I switch on the espresso machine and lean back against the counter as I wait for it to warm. I hear its morning hum and my mouth salivates as the minutes seem longer than usual. My daughter, here for a visit, sits at the breakfast counter; quiet. Our weeks and months have been filled with quiet and gentle conversations and if I can be so bold, they have been peaceful despite the trauma we’ve endured.

And yet in the quiet, I sense that ripples are about to emerge to the surface—lingering confusion, unasked questions, an exhale of utter desperation. A momma knows the language of her child’s heart before they speak a word.

I wait for it.

We sit at the breakfast counter, hands warming around our Starbucks mugs filled to the brim with frothy London Fogs. We deeply breathe in the mingling scents of Earl Grey Tea and vanilla and as I slowly let out my breath, her dark glossy eyes meet mine and she quietly asks, “ Have you ever lost yourself?”

I don’t know how many times she’d told me, or in how many different ways, that she wasn’t the same. Life had been unkind to her. Scratch that, life had tormented her, as it has many of us. I could see her spirit wrestling, searching, and wondering–despite her insurmountable grief– if she would ever return to the girl she had been just months prior.

She had jumped back into work, continued to invest in her relationships, picked up her love for watercolor painting–thinking—hoping–that these things would flip a switch within her; a switch that would cause her dejection to scatter while illuminating her once exuberant spirit. Most people wouldn’t be able to detect that she’d changed, but I did. I saw it in her eyes as I had seen it in my own.

I smile a toothless smile and nod. I’ve been in this place—the place of grieving the old version of myself, the more innocent version, the less scathed, battered, and bruised version. In an attempt to choose my words carefully, I stare down into my mug for a moment, sip my latte– licking the rim clean of frothy almond milk, and pray that I wouldn’t overshoot this one, but be able to meet her right where she is and provide whatever encouragement and wisdom she needs.

“Yes, My Love,” I finally say. “I’ve lost myself. I lost myself when I was in that terrifying car accident at 18; when I was bullied into having an abortion at 19; when I survived my rape at 26; when I…

Each trauma rattled me to my core, shaking loose everything within me, causing me to question who I was and if I would ever be the same again. I questioned God. I questioned myself. I questioned life. I was left so dazed, so messy, so disordered… directionless, motionless– lost.

I knew even then that external wounds would heal, but I was not convinced the internal ones would. Despite all my journaling, praying, and counseling, I have forever changed but I’m not lost—not anymore.”

As my mind relives some of these events, my nose runs and the lump in my throat threatens to choke me. Instead of swallowing back what’s rising up, I allow the tears to fall and somehow manage to whisper, “I’ve grieved that girl many times over the years—man, I loved her. I appreciate who she was and all she helped me endure in those seasons of life. Without a doubt, she helped me to become who I am today– not my trauma.”

She sits quietly, listening. Internalizing.

And I go on to say that although circumstances don’t define us, we often give them permission to. If we’re not careful, one day we’ll look down to see a scarlet letter emblazoned upon our chest. That circumstantial letter, no matter how big, when not properly surrendered to Christ will hold power over us. It will not only tell us who we are; it will tell us our value, and our purpose—which won’t be much.

I don’t want what happened to have that kind of power over me. I want to choose Whose lead I’ll follow and which voice I’ll listen to, and I want it to not only see me, but to know me, and love me. I want it to help me rise above my circumstances, not pull me further into them.

I choose. I assign my Power Source, my Influencer, my Leader, my God. I do. My circumstances don’t have that kind of power unless I allow it. (In my mind, I hear Saturday Night Live‘s Church Lady saying, “Not today, Satan!)

Steven Furtick, Pastor at Elevation Church once said, “The voice we chose to listen to will determine the future we experience.”

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10)

God isn’t confused about our identity even when our world falls apart around us. He knows who we are, even when parts of us shift, merge, or disappear– or when we stretch and grow.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want the letters emblazoned on my chest to be anything other than who God says I am. I don’t want my identity to hang on what I do or don’t do; what happens or doesn’t happen.

As I write these words, my mind sees the nail-pierced hands of Christ and remembers how with each clank of the hammer to the stake, my name was written in His Book of Life and your name was written in His Book of Life.

Our names—not our circumstances, our sins, our doubts or questions. Just our names. They’re not written in pencil, easily erasable, but written in red; with His very own blood.

I look up to see her nodding as she wipes her running nose on her sleeve and hear her muffled words say, “I get that, but I miss who I was. I want her back.”

We can’t go back. We can’t undo what’s been done but we can look forward, choose what voice we’ll listen to—and understand that it will determine the future we experience. This is not a one-time event, my girl. Nope, it’s an “over and over and over again” event.

Grieve the girl you once were. Honor her. Thank her for helping you become who you are today. The journey you’re on has been ordered by the Lord—meaning He knew that you’d experience loss of self through circumstances of various degrees. He also knew that He’d help you grow through these hardships by equipping you to do it, by reminding you who you are in Him. He does this in a million little ways. Today, it’s through hugs and frothy London Fogs. Tomorrow, it might be though a song on the radio or in the smile of a passerby-er.

“Keep your eyes open, my girl, wide open. You’ll miss the best things if you keep your eyes shut.” Boy, was Dr. Seuss onto something there, wasn’t he?

“You are loved, my girl. You are so loved. You have been chosen and are chosen each and every day. You are seen. You are heard. You are valued. You are not your trauma. You are not your circumstances. You are more than that–so much more than that!”

My daughter and my conversation continues until the last drop of our lattes run cold and I know that we’ll have this conversation again and again. I know this because I’ve had it with myself over and over. It is a message we need to keep telling ourselves.

Today, I’m telling you: You are loved. Let that truth be enough.