My Struggle with Identity

As a little child, I was very tiny and was therefore always protected. Everyone wanted to look at me or hold me (some people even wondered if I would survive or better said how long I would live for) but my mum still wanted to show me off to the world. After all, she just had birthed her own first baby. The most precious thing to her at that time. To my dad, I was his very look alike and perfect. To my family and friends, I was a little wonder and a huge miracle.

Well soon afterwards, my family had another baby so I had to share my world with her and then another baby. I got to school and the teachers would say I talked too much (or they will tell me to just shut up) and sometimes flogged or punished me for being naughty. I soon realised that I was not the prettiest, most intelligent or most outspoken in my class. After school, it took a while to get a job, then I found one that barely kept me going. Adding all these to a number of other unanswered prayers (Imagine how life works). The list was actually endless and with each little thing, it felt like my worth is being reduced. #lifehappens
Often times, I asked myself these question;
- Are you sure you are that intelligent or beautiful or deserving?
- What if you don't achieve A, B or C?
- Am I good enough and will I ever be?

I remember once, I was really looking for a job after months of unemployment and self-worth was close to zero. A family friend saw a recruitment agency that was recruiting for a role I had been applying for. She got home and told me about it. She told me to prepare my CV and was going to drive me to the place so that I could have a discussion with the recruitment agency staff and drop my CV. You will not believe what happened. I felt immediately sick to my stomach and started giving her reasons why I could not get the job. Well, she did not listen to me and forced me there anyway. By the time I got there, I felt too inferior to work for them so I started rambling. You can guess very right, I was glad to get out of their office after the tension but never got called back for a job. I also remember going to careers fairs and networking events feeling like I was not worth being employed. Imagine!!! After my family had spent their life investment to get me educated.

Our struggles are very different so you may not identify with my struggle in the paragraph above but you certainly have things that made you doubt yourself.

At some point, I think we can all relate with the identity struggle. Reading Numbers 13: 32b-33 “and all the people whom we saw in it are men of great stature. There we saw the giants (the descendants of Anak came from the giants); and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight.” As a human being, you think that people think what you are thinking about yourself.

We sometimes see life or issues as huge and big enough to make us seem as nothing, forgetting who we really are.
“I am sick and tired of academics; I cannot wait to finish.”
“How will I cope in school; the lectures and assessments?”
“How can I survive without a job?”
“How can I cope with this poor salary?”
“How will I work with my horrible boss in this bad company?”
“How will I survive when all my friends are getting married?”
“How can I be without children?”
“My child is too difficult?”
“Why am I always broke?”

Life is an enormous struggle; I agree but we must never forget why we started living in the first place. I heard someone say very recently that what you have (the job, school, marriage, children) is what someone else is hoping, praying and trusting God for. A random thought just came to mind, when the spies told the children of Israel about the their “grasshopperness”, what did they expect? That they would continue to live in the wilderness forever or that they will go back to Egypt as second best citizens?

I have been very hurt, sad and felt rejected and I have also compromised on some things I held true just because I began to doubt my own identity. But I plead with you, never compromise on your identity, dreams and visions. If it cost the children of Israel a generation that did not enter the promise land, imagine if it cost you more just because when life gave you some issues, you became unsure of who you really are.

Have a fabulous weekend.
With loads of love, hugs and kisses,
Miss Onakz...