Identity Crisis

I'm having a sort of identity crisis. In the course of two years, I have lost both of my parents. One to brain cancer, and the other to a personality disorder. However,  this unearthed some truths that I had not yet faced- I never really had them in the first place. I never had good, healthy relationships with either of them. Although it wasn't all bad, it certainly wasn't foundationally good either. I was closer to my Dad, but my relationship was more what he wanted than what I needed it to be.

So, now that there is no "pretend" relationships happening, and by that I mean I am not feigning that things are right or dancing around issues anymore- the hole is exposed. I am left with questions about God that I never have had before. Will He meet me here?

When you have based your identity on performance which is essentially a shame based system, you are never FULLY loved. You learn to only expose the parts of yourself that are acceptable. So, for me, that meant never expressing that I needed something, whether it was comfort, quality time, money, clothes, etc. I just simply did not express it. I learned that I was not safe as I was, I could never fully relax or let my guard down- I still really struggle with this.

Side note: my parents were not aweful people, they were broken and the product of their own dysfunctional upbringings. I definitely wish things were different, but I can also see how their own woundedness kept them from fully loving us. That task now, belongs to God.

So, I am in this uncomfortable place where my hurts and pains are exposed, God's word says over and over and over again that it is His desire to heal, restore to wholeness, redeem, make new...Yet, I question if he REALLY wants to. I mean, will He REALLY come through for me? Does He really want to re-parent me? Oh, how I want to believe!!! Yet, something in me is holding back and I know it's because I am afraid I will fail and be rejected. Obviously, I know in my head this is not the case, but my heart doesn't know it.

How do we get from not knowing or understanding our worth to fully understanding who we are and what we were made for? I believe one of the primary ways we begin to move from a place where we are lacking to a place of restoration is the word of God, specifically, in what Graham Cooke calls "inheritance words". These are words that you KNOW are for you because when you read them, they seem to pop out of the page, they grab a hold of you. This word is God's declaration to you of what He desires to do in your situation, in your heart, in your family, etc. The reason I believe Cooke calls them "inheritance words" is because they are ours by right of the blood of Jesus- they are our inheritance.

The way Graham Cooke describes marinating in these inheritance words is by crafting them into prayers. So, I have begun to take a few passages that the lord gave to me a long time ago, and some that have been given to me by other people, and have just begun to make them the cry of my heart. I want God to meet me here- and I know that is His desire as well, even though at times (like today) I can hardly believe it. But it is how we begin to move from the old to the new, and begin to take hold of WHO and WHOSE we are by the blood of Jesus. When we begin to know who we are, like really know it, our behavior and actions start following suit, not the other way around. When we know how perfect His love towards us is, we have no reason to fear and we gain a new confidence. Our behavior lines right up because we know, absolutely, that He has our best in mind.