Tag Archives: Jesus

Defining Me: Identity

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What if you were asked to write a bio of yourself using 25 words or less—not for any specific context, but simply with a goal to describe yourself? Could you do it?

Then, what if later that same week, you were asked to capture the word “identity” in a photo—could you do that?

Those were the challenges I faced this week through my small group at church, for which we are using the book Courageous Creative by Jenny Randle (Challenges 21, 22, and 25). And that’s what they were: challenges.

First came the bio. Let me cheat and describe myself, particularly my training as a writer, in more than 25 words: I have degrees in technical writing, in the teaching of writing, and in rhetoric and professional communication. For my research at the Master’s and PhD levels, I focused on writing for audiences. Thus, having some idea about who I’m writing for when I write is pretty important to me, even when it’s not something that falls within the “professional” realm. And there I was facing a generic challenge to describe myself—my “awesome self” to be exact (p. 109).

Ahem, Jenny, not enough info. For whom? Why? For what platform/medium? (These are the first questions of writing! Audience, purpose, context! Especially for a technical writer trained in rhetoric like myself.)

I thought of the people in my small group. Seemed not to fit the bill. Too small. But something like a Facebook or Instagram bio didn’t seem to fit either. I was lost. Since the book we’re using is a Christian devotional, that did provide some direction: What do I think of myself, particularly in relation to God?

The day I read the challenge, all of the above thoughts came to mind, I panicked a bit, and then I put it away. Not today.

The next day, I tried to narrow down the type of info I’d put in this bio. Naturally, I wrote two-and-a-half pages of notes that didn’t come near to covering who I am.

The third day, I came to a draft. By now I had read the devotional and challenge for day 22—to revise the bio—so I knew I could draft it (something I have trouble doing, anyway, being the not-perfect perfectionist that I am). So I drafted it:

I’m a child of God,
imperfect but redeemed,
a sinner but forgiven.
I want to shine like a star in the universe
and glorify HIM.

I liked it, but again, draft. And it seemed like there was so much more that I was missing, even though I managed to put my life verses into it.

The next day, I completely revised it—not yet getting anyone’s input, as the challenge suggested, since I figured I could get input from my small group on Thursday.

child of God
loved
forgiven
redeemed
being sanctified
shining like a star
holding out the Word of Life
trusting
obeying
for the GLORY of GOD

Ehh. I packed a lot more in there, but honestly, who would know it’s supposed to be a bio without any context?

Still struggling with these (and not satisfied), I put off the challenge I came across for Day 25. Jenny cleverly put these close together, not necessarily saying they were related, but still. Days 21 and 22 were write and revise a bio, and then day 25 was to capture the word “identity” in a photo using the negative space around the focus of the photo as something of interest.

Identity. In a photo. I had no clue what to do.

Honestly, I considered pulling out my dictionary (okay, pulling it up on my phone) and looking up the word. But I knew that wasn’t the point, because Jenny had asked her readers to pray about it and encouraged/reminded us that we have a God-given identity, and shouldn’t focus on/believe the lies we tell ourselves (or that are told to us) instead.

But how was I to capture that in a photo? Ideas flitted through my mind, some that I don’t have the resources, skill, or technical know-how to pull off. None of them felt quite right anyway. But today it was rainy and I was given unexpected time to be alone with God and my camera, and I think I did capture it—at least, my rendering of identity.

A cross on a necklace in foreground, chair and bookshelves in background

My savior, Jesus, represented by the empty cross, and in the background is the place in which I meet with him every day. This is my identity—he is my identity. I can’t separate myself from him. And I hope people see him when they look at me, and are drawn to what they see.

I will be the first to admit that when people have seen me in the past they haven’t always seen Jesus. Or, perhaps, they’ve seen me in some of (or only) my worst moments—there have been plenty—and think they’ve seen him and are repulsed by what they’ve seen. I know someone who has rejected even the existence of God because of the example his Christian parents provided as he was growing up. But that’s exactly why I need a savior: I’m a sinner in need of redemption, of someone who can restore my relationship with God and sanctify me (and thank God he is doing that day by day by day and won’t stop until he’s done).

And if I’ve been that bad example for you—shown you the need for a savior rather than the savior himself—I ask that you forgive me. And that you would look beyond me to him.

But I digress. Back to my story. When I took this photo and captured what, to me, encapsulates identity—my identity—it suddenly dawned on me why I couldn’t write that bio. It was because the bio has already been written for me. It’s more than 25 words, but Jenny must have miscounted when she made that request in her book.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:20, NIV)

I’m thanking God for giving me an identity in him tonight.

A Way Forward

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Earlier this week, my son was using YouVersion’s Bible App for Kids on my phone. As he was watching the Bible stories and playing with the interactive animation and quizzes they offer in the app, I was listening. The story was that of Jesus in the upper room with his disciples, telling them that he would be leaving them soon, telling Peter that no, you will not follow me anywhere, and you will not die for me—not immediately. Not tonight.

Tonight, you will deny that you even know me. Not once, but three times.

Still, Jesus led his disciples out of the upper room and went to the cross.

It must have hurt Jesus, this betrayal. The betrayal by Judas should have been enough; one of the people he had taken in, shared his heart with, was about to hand him over to be killed and Jesus knew it. But I think the betrayal by Peter had to hurt just as much, if not more. Peter was the passionate, impulsive, outspoken one who was always quick, eager, and earnest in his responses to Jesus’ queries. Peter didn’t hesitate to profess his love and loyalty to Jesus, yet that is exactly what he would do in the moments when Jesus was facing the hardest moments of his life. “I don’t know the man!” Not once, but three times.

What struck me the most, though, knowing the story well, was not the betrayal itself. It was the knowledge that, knowing what was to come, Jesus still offered his love and life for Peter, still provided restoration for him so he could move forward and be effective in the kingdom of God. Jesus knew what Peter would need—not only to believe, but to be able to forgive himself—and so, when it was all over, he offered that, too. Jesus allowed Peter to profess his love for him three times, to “erase” the three denials with more emphatic, painstakingly heartfelt professions of love.

What amazed me was realizing that, knowing all I would do and say in this life that would hurt him, Jesus still offered his love and life for me. And he planned, even then, to restore me, to make it possible for me to move forward and bear fruit, more fruit, much fruit (John 15:4-8).

Echoes of this message rang throughout my weekend, from a verse in a worship song* to a powerful reading of Jesus’ last words to his disciples at church—so many echoes that I knew this message must not be for only me, but was one I had to share. Jesus knows you better than you know yourself. He knows everything you have done, everything you will do, and still he chose to love you enough to lay down his life for you. He loves you enough to provide whatever you need to restore your relationship with him, your fellowship with him, and help you move forward so you can serve him, love him, and glorify him.

He loves me like that, too.

*The worship song that most spoke to me was Who Can Compare To You by Bethel, especially this verse:

I am undone
For you see all there was and all that will be
Yet you’ve set your vast affection upon me
By your voice the world was made
And still you called my name

11 Days

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Have you ever had one of those stretches of days? I would say weeks, but mine has been more than one week. The past eleven days have been one of those stretches to me.

Here’s a run-down—believe me, a very condensed version of what I could tell you—of my past ten days.

Day 1 (Fri): I get 126 papers to grade (for those of you who don’t know or remember, I teach technical communication in the college of engineering at a local university. Reports and stuff).

Day 3 (Sun): I spend the day being a mom and doing household chores. My husband has to work, which used to be the norm, no longer is, but now might be soon again. That’s another story. We go out to eat half an hour away for his late birthday dinner, and I spend an hour driving home and playing make-your-own-lane on the freeway and side roads in an unexpected snow storm that hit while we were eating.

Day 4 (Mon): My kids have another snow day (they have not attended a full week of school since before Christmas), so I take them with me to the day’s lecture and office hours. I intend to start on that grading, but a colleague asks me to work on something else, so I do.

Day 5 (Tues): The day I normally take for my Sabbath this semester, so I don’t work. I let my daughter borrow my iPad Pro for robotics club—she has never been allowed to use it before. She comes home distraught, with a broken iPad, and mommy gets an unexpected $500 bill in the future.

Day 6 (Weds): Pressure is mounting. I get very little grading done but am graced with postponed dinner plans and extra time to grade. This also means I have to think about what to prepare for dinner. I let the pressure win and break down into a woe-is-me yelling fit.

Day 7 (Thurs): I grade and grade. I teach and then call my husband in tears, because I realize this is one of those days when I have to choose between being a mom and being a teacher. My husband is gracious and offers to feed the kids and clean the house. I grade and grade and grade, and then take a short brain break. That’s when I run across a verse:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God; the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. Isaiah 40:28.

He does not … grow weary. That gives me pause, gives me comfort. On Facebook, along with the verse, I post, On a day when I am beyond weary, this is such a comfort and a good reminder. I also hear a small whisper: Do not worry about tomorrow—tomorrow has enough trouble of its own (Matt. 6:34).

Do not worry about tomorrow. Okay God, I will try. You will have to help me with this because you know how hard it is for me NOT to worry.

I work, at school until 8:00 p.m., and at home again until 12:00 a.m., but finally go to bed prepared for the next day. I met my first grading deadline.

Day 8 (Fri): I grade. I have office hours. I teach. I have a meeting. I teach again. I get in an unexpected and much needed grocery shopping trip. I send my husband off to a spiritual retreat for the weekend and grade again, until I can no longer stay awake reading about bomb calorimeters and the energy contents of diesel and alternative fuels.

Day 9 (Sat): I grade. I do laundry and change the bedding for my sister, who is coming into town so my husband can be out of town and I can still do my normal weekend volunteering at the church. I don’t get as much done as I thought necessary in the morning, and once again I start to worry. Then I look at my grading stack. What I thought should be 35 papers left to get done by Monday morning does not look like 35 papers.

I count. It’s not 35 papers. It’s 12.

Twelve papers, when I thought I had 35 left. When my colleague told me that there were 43 papers, he must have meant 43 papers total, split between three of us. All along, I only had 20. Still a lot, and a lot of time‚ but much more doable than 43 or 35.

See? I told you not to worry. So I don’t, mostly. I spend the afternoon and early evening volunteering at church. Still, I don’t sleep well. There are still 12 papers left, and that is a lot. (Worry.)

Day 10 (Sun): I break down during rehearsal at church.

I “switch,” meaning I run which cameras appear on the three screens in our church, following the director’s, well, direction. But the board (with all of the square lights on it, below) had been reprogrammed since I had used it the previous month. The previous night I had managed to figure it out and do well. Now, during rehearsal, I messed up.

Three people began speaking to me at once in the headphones. The producer was talking into his mic, and I couldn’t hear him because it wasn’t piping into the control room. And I just stopped, put my head in my hands, and let the tears fall.

The tears fell for a full five minutes. The head-in-hands only lasted a few seconds, but the tears lasted. During the director’s patient (re)explanation of what went wrong and how to fix it. During everyone’s waiting on me to get it together, to figure out what I was doing wrong and how I needed to do things differently, after everything had been settled. I just couldn’t. Stop. Crying.

I’m 44 years old, people. You’d think I had it together by now, but I didn’t. I don’t. And apparently I had been running on too little sleep and too much worry for too many days in a row, and I just lost it.

I pulled it together. The others were gracious, so much more than I am to myself. I managed to do well in both services following, and when something did go wrong, I calmly thought through how to fix it, did what I could (I actually pushed the right button!), and everything was fine. Mistakes are made; accept it and move on.

After that morning, I still had to go on. I still had to go to the public library, work until they closed, come home, and work until I couldn’t stay awake any more. I went to sleep with three more papers and a lecture to prepare, all before 10:30 a.m.

For the first time since I started this blog, I didn’t get a chance to write and publish on a Sunday.

Day 11 (Mon.): Up at 3 a.m. Realized that no, I hadn’t lectured on all of the material I intended to lecture on at 10:30 a.m., and didn’t have slides for the first few minutes of it. So I started preparing. Then I showered, got the kids ready, took them to school, finished grading those three papers, and dropped them off.

Dropping them off: “Did you get so-and-so’s email?” No, I hadn’t had a chance to check my email since about 5 a.m. that morning. “Well, he’s behind so we had a bit more time, but you probably would have just wished you wouldn’t have stayed up to get these done.” It turns out that the papers won’t actually be returned until Friday.

Friday.

But you know what? Mine are done. One less thing to worry about.

I rushed off to finish my lecture, had to lecture in a room set up for group work instead of lecturing (one of my many hats is furniture mover, since the rooms are designed for different uses), but it turned out okay. Office hours, writing and printing an exam, and then off to be a mom and housewife again.

Today: Today is another Sabbath for me, desperately needed. There are still 60 papers to grade, but no solid, worry-inducing deadline hanging over my head. So today I’ve mostly rested. I’ve also (obviously) been writing. Writing isn’t always easy, but it is one of my ways of communing with God, so I decided to write and publish.

One of the things God reminded me of when I was mulling over what to write is a lesson that I’ve had to be reminded of, time and time again. It’s the lesson of Martha and Mary, and I’m definitely more Martha than Mary. Sometimes I wish I could be more Mary, just sitting at Jesus’ feet and listening, rather than feeling like I need to be doing. Always doing, always “responsible.” There are many lessons there, but the one I remembered today is this:

“Martha, Martha” [Ahem, “Rhonda, Rhonda“], the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better …” Luke 10: 41-42, NIV.

See, Mary had chosen to listen to Jesus—just to sit at his feet and listen. Martha, on the other hand, had been “distracted by all the preparations that had to be made” (Luke 10:40).

Distracted. That’s a good word for it.

In the midst of everything, I had realized, even if only for a few fleeting sections, that what I was going through was so little, so small compared to what will matter in eternity. But I had forgotten. I had allowed myself to be distracted.

I had allowed myself to forget to focus on the one thing—the one person—who really matters: Jesus. But maybe, just maybe, part of the reason God allows me to go through the worry-stress-fail-collapse-get up-get it done-finally sleep cycle time and time again to teach me, time and time again, that I have a choice. I can choose to focus on the distractions, or I can choose to focus on Jesus.

Focus on him.

I have a feeling I’ll be learning and relearning this lesson the rest of my life. But I find reassurance in Jesus’ words about Mary’s choice; he says the option to sit at his feet, to focus on him, will always be there:

“Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

It will not be taken away from her.

It will not be taken away from you. You may always come. You may always listen to what I have to tell you. Don’t focus on the distractions. Come; focus on me.

What a wonderful invitation. I hope and pray that I will always accept that invitation in the end. Thank you, Lord.