Do you ever wonder who your best self is? Was it that young woman or man in a favorite photo? Well, the one in the upper left corner is a favorite of mine. I was shaking hands with the captain on a Caribbean cruise. Moments later, my relationship with the Norwegian navigator who captured my heart started heating up. But our story unfolded like the Titanic.

Although our romance started with glitz, glamour, and electrifying sparks, it was destined to hit an immovable object that almost destroyed us both. You can read about it in The Windblown Girl: A Memoir about Self, Sexuality, and Social Issues, but for now it’s worth reiterating “Self is a cruel master.”

All About Me

Back then, my lover and I were determined to pursue our own desires. Concerns about who might get hurt didn’t factor into our decisions. Sin marred our best selves and gave each of us obstacles we didn’t know how to overcome. So even though I may have looked my best at that tender age, that appearance was only skin deep. My life was a mess. And, instead of escaping the pain, I ended up exacerbating it. In that modus operandi, I risked becoming just like my mom.

My mother lived most of her life with “self” at the center of her world. Like my behavior on that cruise, she gave little regard to the well-being of others. Her self-absorbed thinking dictated her actions impacting those who loved her, and doing damage that lasted for years. (See page 108 of The Windblown Girl.)

As a young woman, I realized I could easily be that way. This is what I wrote in my book:

Perhaps we all have narcissistic tendencies to some degree–that desire to meet our needs, to protect ourselves. But watching my mom made me determined not to allow my “self” to dictate my well-being (p. 112).

The only way to fix the brokenness on the inside of me was to put Jesus at the center of my life. Submitting my will to His started me on a journey toward healing and wholeness.

Determined to Change

Denial became my worst enemy. We were created to live in reality. The problem is reality exposes the truth about who we are, and sometimes that’s rather horrifying. But

what if there was a place so safe that the worst of me could be known, and I would discover that I would not be loved less but the more in the telling of it?

That place exists. And when you reach it, unresolved issues will begin to heal, (The Cure by John Lynch, Bruce McNicol, Bill Thrall, p. 29.)

Years ago, I found that place in Jesus Christ. Or rather it found me because even before I knew Him, Jesus revealed the Truth about who my affair had turned me into. I’d become unfaithful. A cheat. Untrustworthy. A liar. That wasn’t who I wanted to be. No matter what, I wanted my son’s mom to be better than that.

By turning to the power of Christ and biblical values, I started to heal. In the process, my life took on purpose, meaning, and increased value. And, yours can too. But it’s not easy.

Claiming a New Identity

Sometimes we want what we want when we want it. Sometimes we want to rant and rave about things we don’t like–or at people we think are wrong. Yet Jesus wants us to be like Him. Philippians 2:3-8 tells us to:

do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

We can’t do that by ourselves. To walk into a new identity requires dying to our old way of doing things. It means exchanging our old nature for the Truth and Light of reality. As this song explains, that takes the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit. 

Sometimes We Get a Glimpse

Every once in awhile, I see a little of the person I want to be. For a few years, I worked nights at a print shop near my home. Quite often it was hard to interact with the public, so before starting my shift, I’d pray Jesus would walk in my shoes. One night an angry customer screamed at me, furious because of something I had no control over. At the counter, numerous people watched the interaction as Christ filled me with the strength to respond in kindness. The more pleasant I was, the more she yelled. But I knew any other reaction on my part would only make matters worse. Finally, she left in a huff.

Afterward, even days later, customers asked how I did that. It was the power of Christ at work in me through the Holy Spirit. John 15:4 & 5 describes how this works:

Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

 

Before Christ, I was miserable, ashamed, and a slave to my desires–even when they had the potential to do tremendous damage to myself and others. With Jesus, I started discovering my true identity as a child of God. That freedom is worth whatever it takes. And, Romans 10:9 says that all it takes for anyone to be saved is to believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. I can’t help but think the one we most need to be saved from is ourselves. In Christ, we have the ultimate master–One who loves us beyond measure and wants us to be our best selves. And, He shows us the Way to become more than we ever hoped or dreamed.