Identity Issues as Image-bearers.

An often overwhelming struggle: Who am I? Where do I fit it? What is my true personality?

I can not make the assumption of this struggle for all ladies, but I can speak for myself. And I know these questions plagued me like the backache that won't quit, pulsing pain, for years on end. Identity was what I wanted named, marked in bold italics on my birth certificate, no guess work or figuring out required.

The early teen years . . . ew. These years I battled hard to take who I was, blend it with who I wanted to be, and make sense of it all in the process. I was a leader, an extrovert when in groups, a non-conformist, yet a pleaser. How did this all fit together? Was it my environment shaping me, or God, or was it both?

This I witnessed recently: fifteen young women sitting in a circle. They have only known one another for a few short hours. Already, these girls paired off into like groups. In threes and fours I found them, the sporty girls, the fashion-forward beauties, the ones possessing shy and sweet spirits.

I sat amazed, seeing how naturally our personalities spring forth, often displayed by our clothes, but certainly met without disguise through honest conversation. We are often drawn magnetically to those like ourselves . There we are comfortable and can say, ah, this is known and understood. Perhaps those over there may misunderstand me. Is there much worse in life than being misunderstood? Can't everyone else see the real me, my God-written self, bubbling over this shell of a body? Personality! Individual! Myself!

If only I could identify myself accurately, seeing this person not first as a box filled by personality-test or social status or life achievement, but as simple image-bearer.

Yes, that's it! I, this sometimes hippie/poser/mom/artist/wanna-be/misunderstood/pleaser/achiever/goal-getter/desperate to fit in/ lost seeker, is not all this, but an image-bearer of a creative, personal God!

I have read a lot of the written works of saint-woman Edith Schaffer this year. She writes often of this Personality God, the Creator creative, allowing us, image-bearers, to be creative personalities each our own.

Conforming to the image of Christ does not strip me of my personality. Personal God gave me this gift, not to be strived for and re-designed according to my own insecurities. Leaving sin and perversity, conforming to the Creator. The strive to fit just this certain way is futile, I want to be as He made me. The more I conform to his likeness, the more of my true self will come forth. Identity battles cannot abide with true Christ- light reflection.

Beholding my sisters in Christ as image-bearers, why stay with those only like myself? Risking being misunderstood, I hope to seek out personalities different than my own. There, I will see other lights of Creator God. Unfamiliar, perhaps. But beautiful!

The struggle for identity, I have found, is looking inward, rather than upward. Wearing a visor of self-centeredness, living pressure to perfect this me, instead of living word most important: reflection. Reflecting Personal God, Creator God, Holy God.

We bear the image of the Creator!

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