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Identity Thief
WHAT do I need to know about you, to really know you? WHO do you need to talk about so I can feel your heart and see your face light up with life?
In the book “The Sacred Romance” Curtis and Eldredge write,
“Identity is not something that falls on us out of the sky. For better or for worse, identity is bestowed. We are who we are in relation to others. But far more important, we draw our identity from our impact on those others- if and how we affect them. We long to know that we make a difference in the lives of others to know that we matter, that our presence cannot be replaced by a pet, a possession, or even another person.”
I reconnected with an elderly friend on Sunday who said, “I don’t know if you know that my husband passed away in May”? I had not heard and we talked a minute about her grief. She said “I don’t know why I always feel the need to tell everyone about that.” It dawned on me then. I knew why, and I told her, “it makes sense to me. To know you, means I need to know about him. He is still part of your life. He was part of the shaping of who you are.”
Most people come to a distinct convergence in life. It’s usually a dawning of who/what tells our story (the highs and lows of life) and then the choice of how we accept this reality. We’re so afraid. Maybe it’s because we want our story to be different. We persevere hoping that somehow we can change it. And the layers begin to mount. Layer after layer of falseness.
What if, even if we are fearful, we don’t run. What if we remember. And cry. And mourn. What if we put it around our shoulders like the one missing and necessary sweater? What if we engage with it; let it trickle down into our our bones and truly affect us? freeing us in honesty? This steals ground from the enemy because nothing is hidden. We’re living in truth where there are no shadows that house haunting voices. Only light. Beautiful, glorious light where we are who we are with no dichotomy between the outward and inward.
This is the cleansing and wholeness that our identity needs. It is the shedding of the falseness, bearing and braving everything that has shaped us into who we have come to be, with hopeful and joyful knowledge in who we are becoming.
It frees us from being victims.
It releases us from gripping fear.
It launches us into life.
Hi Sonya, How have you been? I have been reading some of you wonderful blogs tonight… so comforting. thank you for writing, and thank God for giving you such talent.
Autumn is swiftly approaching. A friend and I drove up the hill to Red Feather Lakes Saturday, and some of the aspen have already turned to their lustrous golden hue. The weather was perfect, cotton-soft clouds moved slowly across the sky, a gentle breeze whispered through the pines and cooled the heat of the sun on our backs as we dined at a picnic table.
The last time I was there, my wonderful husband was with me… our last trip together… Had we known the future, would anything have different?
We may have held hands tighter, looked more deeply into each other’s soul windows, or mouthed the words, “I love you”, more fervently.
Yet… how could we have loved each other more? Even at the moments of his departure, his love transcended the common limits of life to wait for me, to bid me a final, “I love you”.
That miracle moment, that golden journey through the passageway from earth to God’s presence… began with my hands holding his in one last desperate clasp, yet he could not stay.
Oh sweet lady, I love your bright heart. Thank you for sharing your life. I’m so happy that you have had this kind of love. Everyone is so desperately seeking that. To have known this is to have lived well. (((HUGS)))
Reblogged this on The Dash Between.