It is an unfortunate but inevitable fate that when you live around the same people for long enough, you gain a specific identity. Immediate family, relatives, friends, coworkers, peers, all have a view who they think you are. No matter what kind of person you want to be or who you know yourself to be, everyone has an image in their own my mind of your personality, strengths, weaknesses, goals, character traits, and identity.
I’ll admit first off to never actually having thought about this until the race. Being home around people I knew well was comfortable. I didn’t spend excessive time questioning who I was or what I needed to change about myself. I never thought about how I was viewed by others on a spiritual level. I didn’t create goals in my mind of how I wanted to appear to others, and I never took a moment to stop and think about whether the friendships and relationships I held were helping me grow into a better and more desirable identity, or whether because I was “known” by those close to me I was really just stagnant in my emotional and spiritual growth.
However, that being said, I’m not at home anymore. I’m the farthest away I could probably actually be, which at the moment is Zambia, next week Botswana, and the week after South Africa. And that being said, I’m not around my family or my close friends from home anymore, I’m around 16 other wonderful new people who before 3 months ago really knew nothing about me. So that being said, being on the race has opened up an opportunity for me to throw out my old identity and create one that I want. One that isn’t comfortable or normal. An identity that’s more me and more in line with who I want to be in the future.
See identity isn’t something that is set in stone. It can change every year. Every month and day and moment even. I believe that the identity of a person can change with a single decision. A single choice made in only a moment that changes who you are. Like the choice to leave home for 9 months to teach about a gospel that I am still learning about, that every person on my team is still growing in. Like making the decision to immerse myself in scripture, not to just read it and say I have, but to let it reshape me. Like the choice to sit down with a stranger who doesn’t not know Christ and have the courage to tell him why I chose to pursue Him. And like the choice to admit that I am not knowledgable, or holier, or more worthy of anything, but actually more in need of guidance and help because of the choices I’ve made and where I now stand in this little part of the world.
So, I’m realizing that while it’s an inevitable fate for you to be come known, it’s also a choice of HOW you become known. Other people don’t get to define who I am. And no one in my life except my God can ever actually say that they know me, because no one else but Him knows how I will change or what decisions I will make that push me. I miss my family and friends, but on a deeper level, one that I’m still trying to figure out, they don’t know me right now. They don’t know what crazy things I’m experiencing and how different my mindset is from 4 months on the field. They have no clue how deeply I love and miss and appreciate them. They have no clue how my passion for Christ has changed and grown and exceeded what I ever thought it would. And they have no clue what my identity is anymore. Not because they don’t know me on a real and personal level, but because my identity isn’t in ME anymore. It’s in Christ, it’s in striving to look at myself as the the least of these, as a servant, and as forgiving and humble and lowly. They don’t know me because for the first time I think I’m allowing my identity to change, I’m setting new goals, deciding who I want to be in the future, and reaching for something higher and mightier then I ever have before.
