Circumstances, Identity and 2024

WELCOME TO 2024!!!!! 

This blog is going to be to as much for myself as it is for you. It can be very hard not to let our circumstances become our identity. We tend to think that our circumstances are what make up our identity but that is not the way it works. They are two separate things.

Let me start with an example. There are a two very private aspects of Turner Syndrome that I do not talk about or want people to know about. It is not something I am embarrassed about but it is something I have really comes to term with. It just does not define me! I put my treatment on twice a week and that is it. It has not always been an easy road but compared to my sisters, my family has made it a lot easier to accept. I am so accepting of it now that I do not want people to know because it does not define me. 

This is an example of how I put a distance between myself and a circumstance that I have no control over. I wish I could say this about every situation I am in but that is simply not the case. God has been faithful in helping me trust Him more but when things are not the way I want them, I place my identity in these circumstances and up berating myself, beating myself up, and not feeling like I am enough. I get so angry and frustrated because while I can accept the example I gave above; I struggle to accept smaller things!!!! 

In 2024, I desperately want my identity to be solely on who I am in Christ and in what He says I am in. How do we get to a place of acceptance and separate our distance from circumstances and our identity? In the about example, I have learned to accept it simply because there is nothing, I can do about it! I realized as a teenager; I would rather make peace with it because it makes no sense in my mind to let something that I have no control to determine how I feel. I can often be heard saying "It is what it is." I know this will not work everyone but for me it worked. I felt more in control in a situation in which I cannot change. 

In 2024, there will be things that test us. There will be challenges. Things will happen that we have no control over. For those of you like be in control like me, when you put distance between your circumstances and your identity, you are in a way taking control of that situation. It doesn't define you. You can see the situation differently and thus you will behave differently. 

I encourage you to work on this in 2024 if you struggle with this area as much I do. I am just as guilty as anyone when it comes to this topic, and I will be walking alongside you in this journey of changing it. Are you ready to see yourself differently? Are you ready to see yourself as God sees you and not the circumstances you find yourself?  Let's do this!