i·den·ti·ty cri·sis (n)
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a period of uncertainty and confusion in which a person’s sense of identity becomes insecure, typically due to a change in their expected aims or role in society
Every day for 4 years I woke up and went to highschool. I did homework, took tests, got reports back. I was a student.
Up until senior year I laced my shoes and ran out on the court every weekend. I ran miles, crossed finish lines, competed. I was an athlete.
Back in the States, I come home every day to my family. I eat dinner with them, I share my life with them, I love them. I am a daughter and a sister.
These are just a few of the words I use to describe myself, but I am also a friend. A teacher. A coworker. A classmate. A teammate. A caretaker. I am but a million different things, but none of them are above those that He says of me. That was something that I have spent my whole life searching and seeking the answer to, and it wasn’t until I heard the story of a 17 year old stateless girl that I realized who I am.
The last four years have been a roller coaster of a ride. Each year has had its highs, and each year has had its lows. Each year I began believing that God was good and that I was worthy, loved, seen, etc because my circumstances were good. If something would happen to my friend group at the time, then I too would collapse and begin to doubt everything that God was promising me. It took me four years of me seeking worth in academics, partying, guys, athletics, approval of friends, affirmation of those in authority over me, literally anything that seemed like it would love me back to realize one concept:
Even when my world is falling around me, God is still steady. And He is constant. And He’s never going to let me go.
I consider my story to be a testimony of a search for identity. During the high seasons, I have stood planted on the truth that I am chosen, and I am loved. But during the low seasons, I have laid on my bed, buried underneath the lies of unworthiness, being unloved, undeserving. I have climbed to the peaks of mountains and felt the joy that life brings, but I have also felt the suffocating darkness that the world can cover us in. My life has been an ever shifting view of how I see myself. I let the world identify me and convince me that I am unloved. In a world of unrelenting brutality, it knocked me down nearly to the point of not being able to get back up. By the time I graduated in May of 2018, I was emotionally drained at the ever changing value I saw myself as. I didn’t know who I was.
Flash forward to today. I was still struggling with believing the lie that I was unloved. I KNEW that I was loved, yet I didn’t FEEL like it. We started our last week at the orphanage, so they wanted us to share our testimonies. My team wasn’t exactly sure what they were looking for, so we just said whatever the Lord had put on our hearts this morning. After we were done, they let some of the teenagers there share their stories. They told stories of broken homes and broken lives. All of them were brought to tears reliving their stories and it broke my heart that anyone, much less someone my same age or younger, having to go through such hard things. Then we got to the last girl to share. This sweet 17 year old was born in Burma and lived there for most of her childhood. Her mom gave her away to her friend’s family, but when they were tired of her and tried to take her back to her home village, her mother was nowhere to be found. For several years she was passed from family to family until she finally ended up at an orphanage. A Christian missionary was visiting and told her all about Jesus and decided to help her receive treatment for her disease (AIDS). He contacted the orphanage where she’s at now to get a letter stating that they will help give her treatment. Using this letter, he brought her to the current orphanage. Since she never returned after her “short term health visa” she technically arrived i11egally. She doesn’t have any birth records or certificates. She doesn’t belong to Burma or Thailand or any other country. She doesn’t even know her real name. This is called an identity crisis. She is stateless.
She talked about how she has struggled fitting in with the Thai children at the orphanage because of their differences in appearance. She has struggled with feeling worthless and unwanted and unloved. She doesn’t know who she is. It was only the day before that I realized the meaning behind my key (shoutout to my blog “Loved”) and once I knew the meaning of my key I knew I wanted to give it away to someone else to discover for themselves. Right after her testimony and my teammate mentioning that she wanted to give her her key, I knew that the Lord was calling me to give her my key. I went up to her afterwards and took it off and put it around her neck.
“For you, because you are loved.”
On the songthaew back, my team was discovering the power of all the testimonies shared. After I told the team that I gave her my key because I have struggled with identity, we realized the power of our God and who He says we are. It doesn’t matter where we are born, if we are rich or poor, educated or illiterate, if we do not plant ourselves in WHO GOD SAYS WE ARE, we will succumb to an identity crisis. I am a student and an athlete and a sister and a friend and so many other things, but none of them are higher in importance than those that He calls me: chosen, loved, wanted, worthy. The world didn’t turn an eye to this girl when she was abandoned and broken, but none of it changes how He sees her: found, whole, loved, daughter, beautiful, saved.
We have very different pasts, but it doesn’t change the fact that we are both indescribably loved by a heavenly Father. We were born halfway across the world from each other, yet somehow we ended up in the same room on October 30, 2018 to share our stories to remind each other how much we are seen and loved. The world tells me that I am not wanted, but I have a God that gave everything to have me back. The world tells this girl she is unknown, but she has a God that calls her by name.
