Part four of this Identity Crisis series is going to be about talent. I feel like this is a big issue for teenagers because high school gives us so many opportunities to let our talents shine. My school offers 12 sports, 14 clubs, and 4 auxiliaries, as well as academic events for students to compete in. This leaves lots of room for identity misplacement. When you become too centralized on your talents and abilities, not only can it cause you to become arrogant, but it can also cause you to feel like less of a person if you do badly in some event or competition. All your talents are 100% God given. Yes, you practice to become good at what you do, but who gave you the ability to practice? God. Whether it's a sport, an instrument, academics, or anything else you're good at, you are not defined by how good or bad you are at a certain sport or activity. You shouldn’t place your identity in a sport because of the scripture below.
1 John 2:17 The world and its desires pass away… When you get to heaven, how much will all your first place trophies and medals matter? We aren't going to be judged by God based on how many A's we got or how well we are at playing guitar. We’re going to be judged based upon the condition of our heart. I used to play basketball with a girl who thought that if she didn't play well enough, her parents wouldn't love her as much. I tried to tell her that it wasn't true, but she didn't believe me. Some of you might have certain talents or abilities and you might think that you have to perform well to be loved and accepted. Whether it's a sports team at school, honors class, or anything else you're good at, you don't have to be perfect at it to be accepted by the people who care about you. Here are two things to remember when it comes to talents and abilities. 1. All Talents Are God-Given 2 Corinthians 10:17 Let he who boasts, boast in the Lord. No matter how good you are at something, you have no right to boast in yourself. God is the one who gave you your abilities. Give God the glory when you boast in your abilities. Because without Him, you wouldn’t have any. 2. Use Your Talents to Further the Kingdom Colossians 3:17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. This scripture tells us that we are to do everything as a representative of Christ. Let the world see Jesus though your actions. No matter what it is you're good at, you can always find some way to minister to people. You can invite the people on your team or in your class to church, you can tell them about God, or you could just show them the love of Christ by living it out in your own life daily. No matter what the world is telling you, you do not have to perform, or perform well, to be loved and accepted. Your identity doesn’t come from your abilities. Always remember that God gives you your talents and that He wants you to use them to glorify Him.
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For part three of our Identity Crisis series, we’re going to be talking about relationship status. This topic hits very close to home for me, and it’s also one of the most important things I could write about (in my opinion). Dating opens up a whole new world of temptations for teenagers. And since girls are typically more sensitive and expressive with their emotions than boys, it seems as if girls take relationship status more serious. For us, if someone breaks up with us, we feel like we did something wrong in the relationship or something is wrong with us as a person. We often find that we become extremely insecure because we put our identity in our relationship status. Therefore, when we go from taken to single, our identity crumbles because it was in the wrong thing.
I’ve seen this situation unfold firsthand. When I first got put into foster care almost two years ago, I went into a public high school for the first time. I didn’t know anyone and I wasn’t super eager to make new friends. I should also note that I had never had a boyfriend before. So when I went to the Friday night high school football game and this guy from my BCA class asked if I wanted to come sit next to him and share his candy, of course I said yes. We didn’t even watch the game; we talked all night. The next Monday at school, he asked me to homecoming. I was ecstatic. On Wednesday, he asked me to be his girlfriend and I said yes. Except, there was a huge problem. I didn’t know anything about him. I knew he liked to draw and I knew he was into MMA. That was really all I knew about him. I knew nothing about his religious beliefs or anything of importance. I found out soon enough. He was a satanist. He also didn’t respect my desire to stay pure until marriage. He tried to pressure me into doing things I didn’t want to do. At first, I was very open about my belief in Jesus. Then slowly, I began to talk about Him less and less. I began to think “Maybe it’s okay that he isn’t a Christian. He’s really nice. He buys me food and anything else I want when we go to the mall. He’s a gentleman to me, my brothers, and their foster parents.” By the time we were two months into our relationship, I had completely justified his satanic beliefs and decided that it wasn’t a valid reason to end the relationship. I can honestly say that that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. I moved to a new foster home a few days after our one month anniversary. He became controlling and untrusting, even though I had never given him a reason not to trust me. It took eight months of his evil, manipulative, controlling behavior for me to realize that I needed to get out of this relationship, and quick. The lightbulb flicked on when I went to a Christian youth event at my high school, the Lord convicted me hard that night. I repented and texted my boyfriend right away. I told him that I was done compromising on my faith to make him happy and that I was going to start talking about God again whether he liked it or not. He exploded and told me to never say the name “Jesus” or “God” ever again. I ignored him for the next several days, until he saw my snapchat story where I posted about going to my boy best friend’s birthday party. My boyfriend told me that I was not allowed to go to the party since it was for a boy. So I did what any mature person would do. I took my happy self to that party, took a picture with my boy best friend, sent the picture to my boyfriend, then broke up with him. After we broke up, I wasn’t sad in the least. I wasn’t heartbroken. I was happy. The purpose of that whole long story is to prove this verse to be true: 2 Corinthians 6:14 Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? If only I had listened to that verse, I wouldn’t have had to deal with eight months of compromising and emotional abuse. I had ignored so many of the warning signs and red flags because I was so desperate to be in a relationship. I shoved my beliefs and values to the back burner so that my relationship identity wouldn’t crumble. After that moment of revelation, I realized that while I wasn’t upset about the relationship being ended, I was a little crushed at the thought of being single again. I had begun to identify myself as being someone’s girlfriend. I didn’t know what to do with myself anymore. Finally, I decided to stop. I prayed and asked God to help me. And you know what? He did. I finally felt free and secure because I realized that my identity had nothing to do with whether or not I was single. I apologize that this post was a lot more of my story and not much scripture, but I hope it helped you realize that you can find that freedom and security too; from one place only. Jesus. Place your identity in Him, and you won’t find yourself compromising so easily to stay in a relationship. Continuing our Identity Crisis series, I’d like to talk about popularity. A lot of teenagers make it a priority to be popular. We want to have lots of friends. We want to be invited to all the parties. We want to have the most likes and comments on our social media posts. Those things become so important to us as high schoolers, that we can begin to place our identity in it. I’m not the popular kid in school. I would say that I’ve always been “well-known”, but never popular. A lot of people know my name, and I get invited to several of the popular kids’ parties, but not all of them. And you know what? That’s okay. Because there’s only one friend we need. Jesus. The Bible says that He calls us friend. Imagine that! The creator of the universe wants to be friends with us. Jesus came down to earth to die a sinner’s death just so he could have a relationship with us. And honestly, a lot of us are throwing that gift away.
We become so consumed with wanting to be friends with the world that we lose focus of Christ. We say that we’re too busy to spend time with God, but we’re never too busy to FaceTime our best friend. And I’m not trying to call anyone out; I’m just as guilty when it comes to this. The Bible is very clear on a few things: we’re not to be friends with the world, and Jesus is the only friend we need. I want to be clear that I’m not saying there’s anything against having friends. We can be friends with people. We just need to be sure that we’re not going to extreme measures—compromising our faith—to fit in and be popular. Having lots of friends isn’t everything. Even the King of kings only had 12 disciples. But for some reason, we start to believe that our worth decreases if we’re not the most popular kid in the school. We become insecure because we’re placing our identity in something unstable. Here are a few scriptures to help you battle your Popularity Identity Crisis. 1. Proverbs 18:24 A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. This scripture clearly states that people who have a lot of friends will not thrive. The Bible wants us to know that we don’t need a lot of friends; we have the best possible friend in Jesus. And not only does He want to be our friend, he sticks closer than a brother. He is the only friend who will always be in your corner no matter what; through think and thin. He’s the only friend we need. 2. Romans 12:2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world… While this verse doesn’t have anything directly speaking about friends and popularity, it does reiterate what I said about compromising your values to fit in. Especially in high school, it can be easy to shove aside your beliefs in order to seem “cool” or become popular. But the Bible explicitly tells us that this is not the right thing to do. We’re called to be set apart from this world and be like Christ. The light and dark are not to be mixed. Again, this isn’t to say that we’re not allowed to be friends with unbelievers. I believe this is telling us that we’re not supposed to fall into their way of living. I realize that not pursuing popularity might be a knock on your pride, but that popularity isn’t worth it. You have the King of the world wanting to be your best friend. What more popularity do you need? Try to use these scriptures to help you see that your relationship with God is more important than any human relationship. Because as Mark 8:36 says: What do you benefit if you gain the whole world, yet forfeit your own soul? I’m beginning a five-part series titled Identity Crisis. The first four posts will be focused on the most common places teen girls misplace their identity and scriptures which contradict those placings. The last post will be about placing your identity in Christ.
A lot of teen girls, myself included, struggle with their identity. I’ve discovered that body image is the most common thing young women misplace their identity in. I was homeschooled up until my freshman year of high school (I’m now a sophomore going on junior). I was extremely sheltered with no friends, and the only place I ever went was church and youth camps. This caused me to be completely oblivious to the “real world”, as one might say. I had no experience with the pressure of looking and dressing a certain way. But as soon as I was thrown into public school, (high school, no less), all of those real-world pressures my parents fought so hard to shelter me from were suddenly front and center on my thought train. I suddenly cared about my appearance much more than I ever had in my whole life. That’s not to say that I didn’t have body image issues before—I certainly did. My image struggles were what inspired me to start my blog in the first place. But high school made them 10 times worse. And the result of all that was this: I began to place my identity in the way I looked. There is nothing wrong with wanting to look pretty. It only becomes an issue when that desire becomes infatuating. When we begin to think that we’re less of a person when we don’t have the latest shoes, hottest outfits, and thinnest body. But sister, let me tell you something: you are so much more than your appearance. Here are three Bible verses to help you place that identity in Christ. 1. Proverbs 31:30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. I find it interesting that only “a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised”. It doesn’t say “a woman who always looks better than her friends is to be praised”. We shall be praised when we fear the Lord. This scripture makes it very clear that beauty isn’t what it seems. 2. 1 Samuel 16:7 …For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. The context of this verse is the story of David being anointed king of Israel. Samuel walked among all seven of David’s older brothers, positive that one of them was to become king solely because they looked the part. But God rejected all of them. When Samuel came upon David, the poor shepherd boy, God said, “He”s the one.” God didn’t care that David’s brothers were all bigger and taller and stronger than he was. He only cared that David’s heart was in the right place. To put it simply: God isn’t concerned about your looks. He’s concerned with the condition of your heart. 3. Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image… This verse is very straight-forward. God created you in His image. That means that you are perfectly handcrafted by the Creator of the universe Himself. If God deems you perfect, then what good is the approval of man? These three verses have really helped me to stop placing my identity in my appearance. I still stress about my weight at times, and I still like to dress stylish. But it’s no longer about impressing other people. Anyone who knows me knows that I love makeup. It’s my thing. I have way too many eyeshadow palettes, and my debit card statements have Ulta Beauty all over them. When it comes to makeup, I suddenly become a much bolder version of myself. You’ll never catch me wearing neutral eyeshadow colors; I’m all about the bright and crazy blues, greens, pinks, reds, and purples. But the thing is, I’m not wearing it to impress others. I wear it because I enjoy it. I have genuine fun when I put on makeup and experiment with new looks and colors. The point I’m trying to make with that is this: It’s not wrong to want to look nice, be a healthy weight, and wear makeup. It only becomes detrimental to you when you begin to place all of your self-worth and identity into those things. The world is concerned with how you look on the outside. But what’s more important than that is that God is concerned with how you look on the inside. Instead of placing your identity in your body image, place your identity in Christ. You know the saying. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. The basic meaning is this: when life gets tough, make the best of it. But what if life is more than just “tough”? What if it’s downright unbearable? I have an experience like that and I’m currently living it out. Two years ago, my five younger siblings and I got placed in separate foster homes across the state. This was, to put it in the simplest terms possible, traumatic. We were a very close group of siblings. We told each other everything. We spent as much time with each other as possible. I played a huge role in raising them. And we all got ripped apart from each other literally overnight. We couldn’t see each other. We couldn’t talk on the phone. We were all living with strangers. It was torture. Life had just thrown me a huge bag of lemons, and everyone expected me to make lemonade. And I tried. I tried really, really hard. But I couldn’t find any sugar to make my lemonade sweet. In other words, I couldn’t find the good in the situation. There was never a bright side for me. All I managed to do was squeeze the lemon juice into a pitcher. There was nothing to sweeten it up into lemonade. My point is, we don’t have to always focus on the bright side. Now, I’m not saying go become a pessimist. I’m saying that we go through bad things, and we don’t have to always be happy about it.
Even Jesus Himself was upset when He was going through struggles. And he said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” Mark 14:36 When Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane before He was to be crucified, that was His prayer. He was pleading with God to take his suffering away. He was not jumping for joy trying to find the bright side of his situation. But take note to the most important part of that scripture: Yet not what I will, but what you will. As much as He was in agony about His situation, He was willing to press forward. He was going to give Himself up to be crucified because He knew He would come out on top in the end. I know that what I’m about to say is cliché as all get out, but it’s also true. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes, the tunnel is too long to be able to see the light when you’re first starting out. But if you press forward, continue the race, the light will eventually get brighter and brighter. Another example of someone who was thrown some lemons but couldn’t make lemonade was Job. There once was a man named Job who lived in the land of Uz. He was blameless—a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. Job 1:1 This man was perfect. He had everything. A family, a successful farm, everything. And then he went through immense trials and tribulations. His family died. His cattle died. His servants died. His health declined. He was tormented by Satan. And he hated every second of it. He also was not trying to find the good in a bad situation. He just took it. But the most significant part was that he still trusted God. I gave you those two stories because you need to know that it’s important to keep going. Don’t stop. Keep pressing forward. Take Paul’s advice and run with endurance the race that is set before us (Hebrews 12:1). Your light at the end of the tunnel will come. But until it does, it’s okay to be upset about your situation. Because sometimes, you just can’t make lemonade. |
MissionIn short, I started this blog because I want to give girls all over the world hope. All of the topics I write about on this blog are things that I have struggled with or am still struggling with. I want to help young women everywhere achieve freedom through Christ. Archives
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