Purchased With a High Price Tag
While walking down the hall at the school where I was teaching, I came face-to-face with an eighth grade student who had transferred out of my class the previous quarter. Curious about the transfer, I stopped her and the conversation went like this:
“Why did you transfer out of my class?”
She replied: “I don’t like you!”
A glutton for punishment, I pressed her for more information: “What is it that you don’t like about me?”
Placing her hands on her hips while swerving them from side-to-side, and rolling her eyes at me, she bluntly said “Lady, there ain’t nothing about you that I do like!”
Acting out my inner feelings would have landed me in prison for assaulting a child, so I mustered up a fake smile and walked on down the hall to my next class.
That little episode triggered a flashback in my mind of an encounter I had had with myself a few years earlier. Alone in my bedroom one cold rainy night, I gazed into the mirror and uttered the same words this fourteen-year-old had so bluntly spoken to me: “I don’t like you; I have no idea who you are.”
As downtrodden as I was that night with feelings of no self-worth, and a realization that I had no idea who I was, I knew I’d better find my way out of this maze.
And thus over the next few months, I traveled back down a muddy road searching for answers to how and when I had come to this place.
On my journey, I saw people I had allowed to mold and shape me into their image. I discovered I had a low-key personality, a “don’t rock the boat” kind of person who avoided conflict at all extremes. A people pleaser, a yo-yo on a string trying to keep peace and harmony, howbeit a false harmony, kept my nerves on edge.
Eventually, the muddy road turned into a clear path. This new path embraced me with the truth of my self-worth and who purchased my identity.
You were bought with a price;
do not become slaves of human masters.
(1 Corinthians 7:23 NRSV)
What freedom I experienced when it became clear that my value didn’t come from the opinion I had of myself, or the opinion others might have of me.
It was on the cross that Jesus Christ gave the only accurate measure of our self-worth and significance when He considered every single person on earth worth dying for.
My identity? For starters----
· Accepted (Romans 15:7)
· Adequate (2 Corinthians 3:5)
· Friend of God (John 15:14-15)
· Complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10)
And the list goes on and on.
Would you believe I now stand before the mirror in my bedroom and utter the words, “I like you! I know who I am!”
Am I bragging on me? Not at all! Heaven knows I have plenty of flaws, but along with those flaws, I now have a quite sense of knowing I have much value because of who I am in Him.
In fact, “There ain’t nothing about me that He doesn’t like!”
How I pray my former student knows this about herself, too.
Personal Reflections
1. Was there ever a time in your life that you felt you had no self-worth or did not know who you really were? If so, describe it.
2. How to you come to realize your worth and identity in Christ?
3. How might not knowing your identity hinder you from achieving Created Woman’s goals of Dreams, Identity, Health, Purpose, and Inside Out Fashion?
Goal Setting and Sharing
List 3 goals that you would like to accomplish at home, work, with family, etc. that will allow you to live out your purpose regarding your identity.