“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.” Psalm 139:13-14 (NLT)

For a very long time, let’s just say all my life, I have identified as a quitter. I truly believed that’s who I really was. In 2016 I bought the book A Woman Who Doesn’t Quit by Nicki Koziarz and I read it faithfully for four straight days. And then I quit the book about how to quit quitting. If that doesn’t qualify me as a quitter, I’m not sure what would.

But here’s the thing: identifying and identity are not the same thing. It’s like empathy and pain. When you are empathetic you don’t actually feel someone else’s pain, but you can relate to the pain they are experiencing—usually because you have experienced similar pain yourself. In the same way, if you identify yourself as something—for me it was a quitter—it doesn’t mean that you are what you relate to simply because you’ve experienced times of feeling a certain way.

God recently challenged my way of thinking and opened my eyes to this paradox. What He taught me is that what we believe we are is based on our experiences; who we actually are is based on how we were created. When God knit me together in my mother’s womb, He stitched my true identity into my DNA. His wonderfully complex creation is irrevocable. Yet from the moment I was born, experiences in my life contradicted the truth of my birthright. I began to identify with what I saw—I did not finish the things I started; therefore, I was a quitter. So I made a lovely new nametag for myself with a purple sharpie in all capital letters that said “Quitter.” I wish that had been the only one I made, but there were others… unwanted… broken… ugly… too many to remember all of them. But every one was a label I wore, a word that defined me, and I believed that was who I was.

However, when I started to unpack the biblical concept of identity, I began to realize that my Father, the God of the Bible, did not stitch a single one of those labels into me when He knit me together. They were all man-made, by others and by me. It was synthetic DNA, not the real deal.

What we believe we are is based on
our experiences; who we actually are
is based on how we were created.

If you are an introvert at a nametagged event, then you know the best part of the night is when you finally walk out, rip off the nametag, and throw it in the trash. So, that’s what I did. One by one I brought each nametag to the Lord and asked if it was His name for me. When I wasn’t sure, I went to His Word and read what He had to say about me. One by one I have thrown those one-time-use stickers that I’d been wearing for years in the trash.

Now and then I put on a shirt that still has an old sticker on the front upper left. If I’m in a hurry and don’t look in the mirror before I jump into my day, I may not even notice it for hours. But when I do, I bring it to Him for clarity. Overall, my actions no longer define me. Only my Father has that privilege. When I want to quit (which is still far too often), I remind myself “I’m not a quitter,” and it works because it’s true!

Do you know another label He didn’t create for any of us to wear? Label Maker.

by Michaela L. Carson, Director of Communications