The Broken Comb

Every Sunday morning I have a major identity crisis. I somehow stumble through the week not knowing who I am but Sunday morning,  the thought of facing all those ‘good, pretty’ people at church, it all comes to head in a really nasty way.

I go through outfits upon outfits to settle for something that still doesn’t make me look like I want to look. Majority of the time my hair doesn’t go right. I can’t walk in the shoes I want to wear. (I love heels, but SERIOUSLY how to walk in them?!?!?!) After a particularly horrible getting dressed process, I broke a comb. No it wasn’t because my hair were that ratty. It was because I threw it. Cause I was mad. I know, I know, real mature there, Brittany. . . If it makes you feel better– I could hear all the words my mother would tell me if she had been there, in fact I DID hear them in reality when I told her about it later. Back to the story, we were late for church due to my identity crisis. My husband was less than impressed with me. I was far from pleased with myself. I plopped myself on the couch and started brooding over the problem.

After I had my baby, I had a lot of leftover baby weight. It wouldn’t come off. I didn’t like myself like that. So I finally started a rather drastic change in the way I eat. I lost the amount of weight I wanted to and guess what?? I still don’t like myself. I didn’t like myself before I had Avi. I didn’t like myself when I was a teenager. I didn’t like myself when I was a child. I was different weights at all those times. I have come to the conclusion as my husband informed me in an incredibly stern voice on that, broken-comb-late-for-church morning, it’s a mindset. I’ve heard that lots of times but have never really agreed with it all the way deep down inside of me. As I continue to think about it, I am beginning to agree with it very much. I also think it has very little to do with whether I like myself or not. I think it has to do with what I believe about myself. More to the point–Who do I believe?

I have been discovering that everything goes back to that— do I really believe in the wild, crazy, revolutionary thing that is called the Gospel, or do I not? There is no middle ground. Either I believe it all or I believe none of it.

Believing it all means that I no longer accept the voice of Satan as the voice of truth.  I have read all kinds of identity books over the years, I have read through verse compilations telling me what God thinks about me, etc, etc. But until I take that into my heart as truth. . . truth will be what my culture says, what Satan feeds me, or whatever else comes up.

After growing up in a Christian culture it’s a little shocking to be a twenty something that doesn’t really even know what God thinks about her. The last seven months have been full of lies being replaced with Truth, but I wasn’t letting Him redefine every aspect. I was withholding a part of my identity from Him. The rage of throwing a comb showed me that.

That means instead of searching for who I am in a book, in my culture, or looking for affirmation in the words of others, I need to go to the Truth itself. I need to go to God and ask Him Who I am. Only He has the power to truly transform and redeem identities.