As a young kiddo, I was typically referred to as a PK (Preacher’s Kid – the human child version, not a baby goat). It was like a badge that I didn’t have a choice but to wear. There were certain perks to being a PK and my brother and I nearly exploited every single one of them. One of my favorites was playing hide and seek in the church. The entire church. Not just the sanctuary, but the classrooms, the kitchens, the library, and pretty much every other room (it was a big church).
There were, of course, certain expectations that came with wearing the badge of PK. If anyone was looking, we knew to walk the part, talk the part, and look the part. I remember one of my friends in Sunday school being shocked that I wasn’t allowed to go to their house after church because I was grounded. How could you be grounded? You’re the preacher’s kid! You’re perfect! They were only able to see the badge and assumed that it defined my whole being.
Can anyone agree that the teenage years are a bit ridiculous? Some can get through them pretty well unscathed, but there are way too many who struggle through them. That was me. I was one of the strugglers. The year I turned 15, I came home from an amazing, summer-long mission trip to a house I had never lived in, parents who seemed to be practicing their social distancing skills, and then moved across the country with a parent ill-equipped to parent a teenage daughter due to the devastation divorce often brings to a family. My identity had been ripped into tiny pieces.
All of the expectations of being a PK went out the window – why try to live up to them? It didn’t help hold the family together. Not getting honor roll is no big deal – won’t even be noticed. Cliques at school were often based on ethnicity, and I found that I was a minority. What is a teen to do but try and make up a new identity? I became the girl who skipped school more than attending, I found acceptance with stoners, and desired more than anything to shake off the family who were still scattered like broken glass. I lost a bit of myself before high school was over. Then I experienced a limbo stage between high school graduation and becoming a mother at the age of 21. I had no direction and no idea of what I was supposed to, or wanted to, do with my life.
As a single mom, I had to wear almost every hat imaginable. I tried to do and be everything for my daughter. Be the mom, be the dad, be the nurturer and comforter, be the hard-nosed disciplinarian and one to horseplay and wrestle. I had to be everything for my daughter because I didn’t want her to feel as though she was missing anything or anyone. My family helped as they could, but it never negated the weight of motherhood I felt was on my shoulders.
The hats I wore also included my professional life and my desperate attempts at a personal life. The hats continued to take up space and I often lost sight of who it was who wore them. How could I possibly even have an identity without one of the many hats? I didn’t know who I was with or without them. It was as though I had no identity at all. I went from the preacher’s kid who was like Mary Poppins (practically perfect in every way) to having no idea who I was – but I had to be everything and everyone for my daughter.
Needless to say, I was a bit messed up, trying to hold it all together on my own, and I finally felt some relief when I sought out my identity in Christ. It was as though it was hidden so well inside me that I had forgotten it was there.
Looking back over the years with all of the ups and downs, confusing times, heartache and memories that have a bittersweet hue, I realize now that it was never a badge or a hat that was worn, but a mask. As much as I hated the mask, I loved the mask. I didn’t understand, and still do not have a full revelation of, what exactly I was content to have hidden behind the mask. Are you aware of the mask you wear? Do you know what’s hidden behind your mask?
“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.” Matthew 5:14-15 NIV
If you’ve ever read this blog, you know that I grew up with a very legalistic understanding of God’s love. Kind of like Christian karma. You do good, then God loves you and blesses you. You step out of line and God still loves you but He’s going to punish you for sending His Son to the cross again… and again… and again… It’s easy to believe this, to think God is like everyone and everything on earth. You look at all of the ways you fail, realize you can never measure up, but know that the world is watching you. They know you’re going to fall, and they want to see it when it happens.
So you put on the mask to cover up your identity – the identity that you’re not even clear on. If you knew who you were, you would never hide it behind a mask… or a badge that says different… or cover it with a hat. Like I said, I don’t have a full revelation of who I am, probably because it’s an identity that I can’t fathom to be mine. I imagine, though, that this identity is something that I would want to share with anyone and everyone that I came in contact with.
Typically, if you’re introducing yourself to a new neighbor, hoping that they can eat the brownies or cookies you’re offering as a welcome plate (allergies seem to abound!), you introduce yourself with your name, which house is yours, and maybe point out the kiddos who you’re the parent of. I’ve never introduced myself saying, Hi, I’m Alisha, a child of God. Have you? Has anyone ever introduced themselves to you that way? But isn’t that who we are if we’ve placed our faith in Jesus?
Perhaps we need to have those bathroom mirror pep talks. Tell yourself that you’re beautiful (or handsome), God sees you as worth dying for (and Jesus did!), and you were knit together by the Creator of the universe. As we journey through this series, I hope to bolster you into seeing yourself the way God sees you, affirming your identity in Christ, and encouraging you to hold your head high (without looking down your nose at others). We’ll be delving deeper into our identity as Christians. Who we are, Who’s we are, and who we will be. Get ready to take off the hats, discard the badges, and shed the masks. It’s time we stand tall in our identity.
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. II Corinthians 5:16-21 NIV