What is Identity?

As I started this quest I begin to ask myself where do we get our identity from?  Is it ingrained in our DNA and we learn it as we grow and evolve through life.  Or do we create it; making choices and picking up and putting on hats with every step we take through life? Maybe others create it for us, handing us labels based on what they see, need or desire from us.

This seems like such a big bite to chew and I knew that I needed to start somewhere, so off to one of my favorite book stores!  How many books could there be out there that touch on the idea of identity?  Well!  Have you ever gone into Barnes and Noble (or any other large book store for that matter) and stood in front of the self-help section? Ridiculous!  I don't know how many of you have gone searching in the self-help section looking for some insight, but I was a bit overwhelmed!  There are so many sub topics within identity that the self-help section was no help!  I definitely found some great books that I will come back to later, but little on the overview of identity.

With the hope of narrowing it down a bit, I decided to get on to the Barns and Noble website. I typed in identity and got 35,114 hits in the book section alone!  I narrowed it down to 184 by trying identity crisis. Augghhh... On the website goodreads.com there were 1245 books that people had "shelved" under identity. They ranged from Charlotte's web and the Hunger Games series to Othelle by Shakespear and Sara Gruen's Water for Elephants.

I decided that I should try to back up a little and try asking a different question. In stead of where do we get our identity from, I'd  try asking what identity is. Maybe just the definition of identity would start the juices flowing. The following definitions are from dictionary.com:

• the state or fact of remaining the same one or ones, as under varying aspects or conditions: The identity of the fingerprints on the gun with those on file provided evidence that he was the killer.
• the condition of being oneself or itself, and not another: He doubted his own identity.
• condition or character as to who a person or what a thing is: a case of mistaken identity.
• the state or fact of being the same one as described.
• the sense of self, providing sameness and continuity in personality over time and sometimes disturbed in mental illnesses, as schizophrenia.
• exact likeness in nature or qualities:  an identity of interests.
• an instance or point of sameness or likeness: to mistake resemblances for identities.

British dictionary definition :

• the state of having unique identifying characteristics held by no other person or thing
• the individual characteristics by which a person or thing is recognized

Listed synonyms: individuality, personality, distinctiveness, uniqueness

So it sounds like identity could be described as all the little pieces of me that when combined together make up a person like no other: ME. So what are all these little pieces? I would have to say that first, there is the religious or faith piece. Then we have the national piece, the cultural piece, and all the different personal pieces. (Which I think I would label as the psychological and sociological pieces.) Each of these pieces has their own definition and their own set of hats and labels. Over the next set of posts, I'll  take a closer look at these definition and the hats and labels that we find our selves wearing.

Until then, have you ever thought about who you are and why? Is your identity something that you have consciously chosen or is it something that has just happened?

Identity Questions

Have you ever stopped to think about who you are?  I mean really think;  the type of thinking that ends up driving you nuts and you begin to question why you even started to ask the questions in the first place because now you're more confused then when you started? :-) yes...

This seems to  be the intersection that I am sitting at now; one of those 4-way stops with a blinking red light.  Cars piling up behind me, honking, and I, to stunned and confused to pick a direction, sit thinking back on the road construction that I've just come through wondering what the heck just happened.

The last 10 years or so have been a time of stripping away of who I thought I was and who I wished I was.  It has left me broken and humbled, crying out to the God who I thought I knew.  I often feel as though I am dieing slowly waiting for the answers yet hearing mostly silence.

Who am I if I no longer teach?
   Who am I if I no longer own a home?
     Who am I if I no longer host a church small group?
       Who am I if I no longer run a successful business?
         Who am I if I no longer mentor women who are struggling?
           Who am I if I no longer am studying for a higher education?
             Who am I if I no longer plan and build a successful ministry?

WHO AM I?!?!?!

I know the general "Christian-eese" answer:  "You find your identity IN Christ."  That's great and all, but in a season of life where the God that I had put into a box is not talking to me the same way that He has before, I sit wondering the what-if's that always end in self doubt and darkness.  I have decided to stop sitting and start seeking the full identity of this God that is too big for any box, in hopes that He will sit with me.  Maybe, if I find Him and better understand who He is, I may find in the end, a friend to sit with, who knows me better then I know myself.