Identity and Stories

by Keene Calipara

There seems to be a point in life where we ask ourselves about our identity. Is our identity based on our accomplishments, the possessions that we have, the events we experience, or on what people need us to be? We even relate our identity with stories and represent the various seasons of our lives to chapters of a book. 

Often, our struggle as a person is how we fit in to a story. Initially, we believe that our character is just a role played in someone else's plot - merely, a concept of two stories in one. As we progress in life, nevertheless, our respective stories become more evident. We become the focal and launching points of everything - the protagonist. We are not only affected by what happens around us, but we can also impact what emerges because of us. These, however, do not guarantee that the story is about us.

Just like any other story, ours has an author. Unlike others, our author gave us the ability to choose whether or not to stick to the original plot that he had laid out. Our story requires our involvement to determine its progression and ending. It is a series of choices and consequences. We even experience the effect of other people's actions.

What about our identity? It is not the roles that we play, what the world tells us to be, neither the events that transpired in our lives. Our identity is the entirety of the story based on how the author originally designed it to be. There shouldn't be a struggle with fitting ourselves to a story. 

 You and I are the stories - an entire book that God wrote. It might seem about us, but it is actually about Him. Among others, we are God's stories of goodness, forgiveness, mercy, purpose, passion, prosperity, grace, and most of all, love. Since God is the author of our respective stories, we know that our identity has been intact and amazing even right at the moment God thought about us.

Jeremiah 29:11-13 ESV "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart."