Tag: loss of identity

I struggled with identity long before I became a foreign weirdo living cross-culturally. Maybe it is no huge surprise, then, that I chose to follow a calling that has at times alienated me further, stretched me farther, and pushed all bounds of my identity and who I thought I was.

I am a female and an American. I’m the youngest child of a large family. I’m a rural farm girl from Montana, but one of my most formative childhood years was spent in urban California. I grew up in a poor, hard-working family. But I was loved and privileged, too, with education, encouragement, and opportunities that have carried me outside of my rural community. I was dutiful and obedient, diligent and smart. I was a “good” child and a people pleaser. I avoided obvious sin and the wild life. I pleased others but often felt like they didn’t really know me and maybe I didn’t really know myself.

I got a scholarship to a Christian college. The world opened up to me, and my mind was expanded. I traveled and I learned. I gained real friends and strong mentors. My faith was stretched, and my commitment to Christ was deepened. I thought I knew who I was. I got married.

Then, just as my confidence in myself was growing as a capable, competent member of society and adulthood, I began serving overseas as a missionary. And all over again, I had no idea who I was.

None of my credentials mattered, and my education was a moot point. I babbled like a baby learning language. I didn’t know the proper way to dress or how to eat. I didn’t know how to navigate a market or what I was doing.

A number of years went by, and I had another identity crisis. I did know the language and culture. I did know the community I served. I knew how to dress and what to eat. I knew our goals and plans and what I was doing (on most days!). But I was still often seen as a foreigner weirdo. I couldn’t change my hair or my skin or my passport country. I couldn’t be fully, completely accepted. I would always stand out and be different.

There was still a barrier to being fully accepted or trusted despite my very best efforts. It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough. So I entered a new identity crisis.

Who am I? How do I define myself?

The icing on the cake happened in 2021, when a military coup meant our evacuation from the country and people we loved. We lost all our belongings, our home, our friends, our work, our direction, our identity. We were evacuated to the US, bewildered and needing care. Within a few months, still reeling from that upheaval, I lost my father. We’d had a complex relationship.

For most of that year and the next, I frequently asked myself “Who am I?”

I have tried to be many things in my life. I have worked hard to get affirmation and acceptance in many different places. I have learned new customs and languages. I have tried to overcome my status as the youngest, an “unwanted” child of parents who had too many kids. I have tried to be enough, do enough, change enough, accomplish enough.

How do we define ourselves? Through our relationships? Our accomplishments? Our belongings? In the voices we hear others calling us?

Henri Nouwen calls these the Three Big Lies of the human experience:

I am what I have.
I am what I do.
I am what others say about me.

I had a difficult relationship with my father. But he taught me many good things, too. One of my favorite memories of my dad is him telling me “Remember whose you are” anytime I stepped out of his old pickup truck to go anywhere. It’s the words he scratched at the bottom of his will, and the words he always said that have continued to stick with me.

I never felt like I belonged where I was, and maybe my dad never felt like he belonged where he was either. As I look back on his life and compare it to my own, I realize one reason we didn’t always get along is because we were so similar and struggled with such similar identity issues.

I have often forgotten who I was and who I belonged to. All my childhood experiences and personality leanings, all my travels and cross-cultural living, all the re-entry reverse culture shock and… and… and… have made me question my identity or made me feel like I had multiple identities. I have not felt fully known by anyone, ever. I have often forgotten who I am.

I became the older son from Luke 15 who is resentful and unforgiving. Who has forgotten the reason he has been dutiful and obedient and can’t remember why he wanted to stay home and serve his father in the first place. What was it all for anyway?

I have not struggled with the first Big Lie: “I am what I have.” Perhaps it is because most of my life I have had very little. But I have very often struggled with the next two: “I am what I do” and “I am what others say about me.”

My identity has been intertwined with my ministry, my image as a missionary. My sense of identity has often been inflated or depressed by what others say about me.

Before Christ began his ministry, before he selected his disciples, before his temptation in the wilderness, before he is called by others a “friend of tax collectors and sinners,” before he is called “John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or one of the prophets,” before any of that happens to shape, warp, or inflate his identity, Jesus is called “My Beloved Son” (Matt 3:17).

I am not a child anymore, wondering whether I am loved or unwanted in my family. I am not a newbie to cross-cultural missions, wondering if I am good enough at language learning or if I am making strategic mistakes. I am not a foreign weirdo who will never be fully accepted or welcomed. I am not a fatherless daughter. I am not the rebellious youngest child or the dutiful eldest bitter one. I am not what I own. I am not my vocation or what others say about me. I am not more valuable or less valuable based on what I do.

I remember whose I am: I am a child of God. I am a beloved, adopted by the Father. I refuse to believe the three big lies of the world. I embrace my identity in Christ.

I am reclaiming my identity in Christ above all my other identities and affiliations, above all the things said about me, above my childhood, above my relationships, above my vocation. I will become like a child again and enter into God’s Kingdom as His beloved. I see Him running to embrace me and welcome me home.

I’ve spent time this week reflecting on Henri Nouwen’s Return of the Prodigal Son. I’ve seen myself as the younger son who wanted to run away from home and my upbringing and go to an exciting foreign land. I’ve seen myself as the elder son who must overcome resentment and bitterness, who can envy the easy, carefree life of others, who must learn to trust the Father and be grateful for a Father who says, “All that I have is yours.”

But like Nouwen, I also believe God has called each child of God to become the Father who can extend that unconditional love to those around us.