Who am I? I believe this one question haunts all of us. Some may say the struggle to find ourselves starts when we are born. Others say it starts when we enter Junior or Senior high school. Many still struggle with this question as adults. Some go through life finding a lot of success, so they are successful. But, what happens if they fail? Does who they see themselves as change? Many go through life feeling loved and having a lot to offer to others. What happens when enter a time of not feeling loved or what they have to offer is no longer good enough? Does this change who they are? Those who suffer from addiction, including myself, have been told for years we are nothing more than a piece of crap. We have nothing to offer and no one cares about us. We’ve burned so many bridges that we’ve lost all hope of being able to change, But is this true?
The answers to these questions, and many others, are based on who we want to listen to for the answers. We all learn about who we are by the impact we have in someone’s life or the relationships we build. Sometimes we positively impact people. What we does helps people. Sometimes our actions negatively impact and hurt others. Sometimes our relationships are good and strong. Then they turn and change to bad and weak. Sometimes we know why and others we don’t. Either way, this change hurts.
This is why it is so frustrating to base who we are on what others say or do to us. We base who we are on the outcome of what we do or what others do to us. The problem is that we can’t control these outcomes. These outcomes change from day to day. One day what we do is wanted and needed. We do the same the next day and it’s not. “Why the hell did you do that” is the response we get. This up and down causes our self-image to bounce around from good to bad. This fluctuation causes the foundation of our lives to become brittle and easily shattered. We create and wear masks to help hide what we don’t want people to see, but even this leaves us wanting. We start to question our self-worth. We begin to think and feel what we offer to others isn’t wanted or good enough for them. Finally, our self-esteem plummets. We start to feel like the piece of crap everyone says we are.
I don’t know about you, but I have decided I don’t want to live this way anymore. No, it’s not that I don’t care what others think. I just want to start to listen to a different voice in my life. I want to find someone or something that isn’t subject to the whims of society and what is popular in the moment. Instead I want a foundation that can stand up to the pressures of life and not change. There is only one who can do this and that is God. God doesn’t change, so who He says I am doesn’t change.
In my book I go into detail about what this means. Briefly, it means God’s love for us doesn’t change because He made us in His image. He still loves us even though we turned our backs on Him and said He wasn’t good. He loved us enough to die for us so we could live in relationship with Him again. Jesus died for me so that God could enter into a new relationship with me where He says I am loved, wanted, restored, not alone, and have a hope for a new life with Him. All I had to do was ask Him for it. Now I know who I am and God is rebuilding my foundation on what is true about me.
My question is do you know who you are?
Gary Ackert, Author 