Identity Theft: I Am Who He Says I Am

In some sense or another we all relate to identity; we all have an identity. Even if we have no specific identity, our lack of an identity in turn becomes who we are, our distinguishing character trait.

Identity: the distinguishing character or personality of an individual : individuality b: the relation established by psychological identification

With this sudden understanding of the importance of identity I am experiencing lately and one that I notice might have been growing for a long time up to this moment, I am about to take a good look at my identities over the years to see which ones lasted or were or were not satisfying, and which ones help define who I am today. I want to know who I am.

Growing up, I suppose an identity I had was that of an only child. I was also a girl. I was also young. I continued on to be a good kid, by the world's definition. I was Lutheran, born and raised. I was loved by my parents and family.

A huge identity in my life, one of the biggest, was that early on I was a good student. I was considered smart and hardworking in my studies. I got practically all A's and the occasional B. I had a C for a little while in AP English senior year, but other than that, I was truly an excellent student, and I was known for it. Zoe, student.

More than student I was also naturally athletic, which was good because I loved sports. So I was an athlete.

The first two things I guarantee people thought of when then thought about me in high school were sports and school. She plays sports and she is smart. That was who I was and I was kinda happy there. I felt like I fit into this world and it accepted me for who I was, what my identities were.

I then decided to kinda continue with the same ideas for college. I was going into sports medicine, otherwise called Athletic Training. My goals were aimed at getting a great GPA in college, getting into one of the best AT programs in the country and then rocking it as a ATC (Certified Athletic Trainer), soon to be my new identity. I was planning who I was going to be, how I would fit into the world. But, God had something to teach me, and not simply by word of mouth--that wouldn't allow Truth to sink into my soul. He decided to teach me through experience.

So I got sick. Deathly sick. (Half way through the first semester of my freshman year.) Then they figured out how to save me by figuring out what was causing the signs and symptoms. Then they could treat the dying.

I was diagnosed with Adult Onset Still's Disease, a rare systemic auto-immune disease. A rare form of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. It is like Lupus and like RA, but neither. It is its own rare scary thing with its own specific signs and symptoms.

But all that mumbo jumbo I just plugged in there took me about three years to come to barely understand. And it took me about a year after being diagnosed to begin to realize how it would change my life and my identity forever---well, not forever, well, kinda. You'll see; keep reading.

That first year I spent at school fighting for any semblance of my identity that I could hold on to. If I wasn't a student, who was I? If I wasn't striving to be an ATC, who was I striving to be? I had quickly thrown athlete out the window, I wasn't that naive, living with a rare inflammatory disease. Sports just physically weren't an option anymore. So a whole year I fought, and I don't regret it or anything, I am just saying it was a battle of the heart. I knew who I wanted to be, and thought that was who I was, but this disease started telling me otherwise.

You see, the only reason I had energy to fight was because I was on very high doses of steroids. They were giving me false energy. Good, right, is what you are thinking. But no, bad. Very bad.

You see I had a moment of clarity one day, when the world fell on my chest, I finally let sink in what the doctors were telling me: if I stayed on this path of high doses of steroids it would lead to an early death. The meds could cause an early heart attack, at maybe 35.

And I had a moment there one day, a year after being diagnosed, a month into the AT program that I got into and was doing well at, a few weeks into my sophomore year of college, where I realized these two identities were not worth dying for. I knew I had to come off of the steroids now, only to have to drop out of the AT program and drop a few classes.

I finished that fall semester of sophomore year with two classes, and just those two on low doses of steroids were so hard, not mentally, but physically. I went from student extraordinaire, to struggling sicky kinda overnight--which if it was hard for me to understand and accept, imagine how hard it was for friends and family.

I am not sure anyone other than my mother and father and a couple advisers I had really understood how or why I had changed so quickly. I couldn't at the time put it to words, I desperately tried, you can ask my friends who were there when I made the decision; I tried writing it out the best I could. No one understood the emails. I just left everyone more confused. Which is why I write about it a lot now. I still struggle to this day to paint the perfect picture of the situation. How it feels to lose your identity. Why I had to say goodbye to my identities. It is hard to describe to people who haven't experienced it. I mean, they say experience is the best education, but I would never want them to have to experience this. I just want them to understand it so that they can better understand me. And if they truly care about me, then they would read what I was writing so that they could better understand what I was going through, to better understand me, their friend.

There was one night the previous summer, where much Stills research was done after I had been hospitalized for a few days and nights, when I was writing a mini "book" about Stills for friends and family because I was either tired of all the questions or I was frustrated with the lack there of, that I made a joke to my mom. I told her, "Hey, if AT doesn't work out, I can always be a writer." So in the panic of emptiness from not having an identity to strive for I immediately clung to writer, English. I became an English Major, which is completely random considering my pure hatred for the subject for so long. But I was desperate for an identity, don't you see? Desperate to feel like I had a reason to belong. Desperate to know who I was, or could be.

Jan Term rolled around. And I was off campus and there was snow and I am from California, so I thought an independent studies class would be a good idea. Study on my own time and energy and not be expected to feel good at specific times every day. Well, it was too much and too overwhelming and there were too many bad days I was having. I physically couldn't keep up, even with independent study! Even with an English class that was all reading and writing. Without the steroids I could no longer be a student. But...wait! Then what identity did I have? Who was I? Who am I?

I thought I would try my hardest at Spring Semester. I just couldn't not go to school. I was a student, a good one at that...wasn't I?

In my mind I was slowly catching up to the reality that school was physically too much, but I also knew my mind was still sharp. There had to be a way to suck it up just a little bit more and make it through, right?

I lasted about three days and it was already too much, and I was already taking a light course load. It was take one class for a ridiculous amount of money, or it was...I spent the weekend deliberating about dropping out of college.

I talked to God. I talked to mom and dad. I talked to friends. I talked to the Dean of Students who had been there for me for everything, all the school changes I was going through, and then I talked to my advisor.

We met at a coffee shop nearby campus. The first hour was him asking me about the disease, about the short term affects, the long term affects, what a typical day like is for me, the meds I am on, the short term and long term affects of the meds. It was the most thorough ANYONE has ever been with me about the disease, and it was as if I was finally seeing the disease not as what I wanted it to be so that I could hold on to who I thought I was going to grow up to be, but as what the disease really is and who I was going to have to learn to be. We came to the logical conclusion to drop out and focus on taking care of myself, of my health and adding years to my life.

But then he asked me another question, which spread into a 30 minute discussion. He asked me what I would do with all my time (a roundabout way of telling me we all have identifies, what else, other than being sick, is going to be your identity? You need more than Still's Disease as an identity). I told him I wanted to be a writer.

Again, let me emphasize that I jumped so quickly to this identity, too quickly.

We talked about whether or not I could do it. He basically said, yes, from what he had read of what I have written in his classes that I took, I could be a writer, if I really wanted it.

And here's part of my point for now, it's been a couple years since that day in the coffee shop and I think I am finally realizing, that I just don't want it, not badly enough. I like it, but it doesn't define who I am.

I still want for an identity. That I fully admit. I want something that makes me, me--other than the girl who has Still's Disease. Other than the girl who is sick. Other than the girl who quit AT. Other than the college dropout. But I am not so sure writer is what it is going to be, because I am not crazy passionate about it, because I am not in love with it, and because my soul longs for more.

I mean, I write every once in a while. And I read a good amount of the time. And I suppose writing fairly frequently makes one a writer, not whether or not one is published or successful or good at it. Writing, plain and simply, makes one a writer. And I read Anne Lammott talk about her family and how they read as a vocation. I don't read that much, but I like the sound of that. I almost fit there. But...more. I want more.

But the lesson I learned from God is that we need identity. We thirst for it. We cling to it. It defines who we are and if we aren't defined then we feel we don't exist. We want to exist for a reason, for a purpose. I am one of the we. I don't deny it at all. It is just that it only seems to be designed into our being. A part of our lives God created. But, wait! If God created this idea of identity, what does that tell us? What identities was God talking about? What is He offering us? Who is He? Who are we in His eyes?

God is I AM.
God is our Father.
God is our King.
God is our Savior.
Jesus is our Teacher.
Our Master.
Our Shepherd.
Our Friend.
Our Bridegroom.

And that is just the beginning. My family has this CD of I AM: The Names of God. It is so long. See, even God has an Identity. He is. It is just that His identities are limitless, but then, what does that make us?

So what does that make me? You? All of us? What does God say our identities are? There seems to be a counterpart between who God is, and who we are....making our identities in Him seemingly limitless as well. So if we live in Him, we are:

We are sons and daughters.
We are a people. Part of the whole; part of the body of Christ.
We are saved.
We are students (a different kind of student, but a student nonetheless).
We are servants.
We are sheep.
We are friends.
We are brides.

And the special thing about God's identities, that all the other identities I have clung desperately and foolishly to don't have, is that His are eternal good. They are the identities that take you into FOREVER and that sets you apart: an Identity Set Apart, as NOTW (Not Of This World Clothing Company) says it, because that is how Jesus said it, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of it" (John 17:16).

God's identities, the lasting ones, the ones that aren't taken away so easily by Him, but given freely, the ones that you never have to say goodbye to, they will set you apart. You will not fit in to the world's ways. They will change your character, your individuality, and your personality.

I for sure believe that the identities by which you define yourself, and by which others define you can and will have eternal consequences.

And God's also give a sense of wholeness, completeness, and sense of belonging that you can enjoy now, just as I am trying to do.

I am trying to not worry so much about the worldly identities, and to realize I can be satisfied and a more whole person if I just focus more on ALL the identities God has planned and created for me. It is hard for me, because I was a worldly student and athlete for so long, and because I live in this world that only accepts worldly identities, but I know that is not who or what I want to be defined as by others, worldly, because that runs the risk or running into forever. Here is how I want to be defined, to be known, to be set apart. Here are the identities I must seek. Here is who I am:

I am a daughter of God Almighty, the Father of us all.
I am a student who has much to learn about what I say I believe, about who God and Christ and the Holy Spirit are, and about how to become more like Christ.
I am a servant to my Master; all that I do I do to serve Him. If writing be the way that I can serve Him, Amen. Vade Mecum.
I am God and Jesus' friend, and the Holy Spirit is our telephone.
I am a part of the Body of Christ.
I am saved.
I am a simple sheep who needs a Shepherd to help keep me on paths of righteousness and keep me safe.
I am a bride, who is madly in love with Jesus Christ, my Bridegroom. I weep in His absence, and long to be united completely with Him someday. I must be loyal to my bridegroom and do my best to not cheat on Him with anyone or anything else.
I am loved wholly.
I am Theirs.
I am who He made me to be and who He continues to shape me to be. Thank God for my identities.