Acne & Identity

Isn't it funny that no matter how old we grow, most of the problems we had as teenagers don't really go away, they just morph. Granted, we may have learned how to hold our tongues longer and keep a straight face when necessary, but the hurt is still just as strong and just as cutting.

Sometimes I wish someone would have sat me down and told me that people can be just as hurtful, that a job doesn't equal security, that relationships are hard, that stress will not only continue to give you zits, but can also give you ulcers and make your hair fall out. But then again, praise God no one did tell me these things, because frankly, they are discouraging.

Sometimes these images cause for strange reflection, but I've always been one to get completely lost in thought over some pretty ridiculous things. However these reflections led me to a difficult and yet encouraging realization, one that I felt I wanted to share with each of you.

One of the most important lessons I have learned about myself during my time with YWAM is that I am a beloved of the King. Now I know, it sounds simple, but it's one thing to know something in your head and something completely different to know it in your heart. That six inches between my head and my heart sometimes seem like it mind as well be millions of miles apart; because there are many things that I believe intellectually that never become real because my heart remains unbelieving and unchanged.

For me to believe in my heart that I am a daughter of the most high King has taken what some would call an eternity. I have spent far too many years walking around having a chameleon sort of identity. Making myself fit to look like someone or something or anything, just to find acceptance and a sense of security. Identity. What a small word, what a huge concept.

I remember the first time I was ever challenged in this. It was during my Discipleship Training School. This person asked me, "Jacque, who are you?" And of course I answered, "I'm Jacque Gowing, I'm a student, I studied at Colorado State...." and on and on I went listing the attributes I thought made up me. This person let me talk, and when I had finished they asked me again, "but who are you?" My first thought was, this person is clearly deaf because I just told them who I was. After this question was thrown at me five or six times I finally blurted out, "I don't know!" I finally said it out loud, the thing I was so scared to admit, I had no clue who I was. My chameleon skin lay on the ground, I was standing naked, so to speak, for the first time in my life.

Slowly but surely, God began to clothe me, began to speak things over me. I learned about who He had created me to be, the talents He had given me, the joy He found in me, His beloved. And it wasn't that He hadn't been saying these things all along, it's just that I thought He wasn't trustworthy, that the things He had for me were more like condemnation and judgement. I had been deceived, because the things He had for me were like succulent fruit or decadent chocolate cake, I couldn't get enough.

Now let's be real, you do not discover your identity one day and then walk in it flawlessly until the day you die. It becomes a choice. I have to choose day in and day out if I am going to walk in the chameleon ways of my old self, or if I'm going to put that to death and walk in the fullness of who I was created to be.

So back to our teenage selves, although some things never change, I am forever grateful that my identity has. The real reason behind what got me thinking this way is, for the past few weeks I have started getting involved with a local skate church. There is an incredible group of people that have been holding a weekly skate church for 10-18 year olds that have come from broken homes and circumstances. They are students that may not necessarily have a church or feel comfortable in a church setting. So they meet in a skate park, where they are fed, discipled, and are free to skate.

After someone shares, we break the students up into small groups. There are 3-4 girls that show up and as it's only my third week, I am just starting to get to know them. They have no idea that Jesus loves them as much as He does, they have no idea who to find their identity in, they are hurting and facing all of those dreadful teenage insecurities. And more frightening is they don't have strong friends and family supporting them and encouraging them to hold tight to Jesus.

And so that's why my thoughts have been reaching back to all of those moments in my own life. I would so love your prayers for this, for glimpses into their lives and hearts. That ultimately Jesus would reach in and touch them and they would walk in their identity, princesses of the King.