Is Your True Identity Submerged by Your Important Life Roles?

February 9, 2015

False identity can come from a surprising source—happy ones.

“Party opportunities” that go awry, so to speak.

For example, have you ever known a woman who had a baby then identified so much with being a mother that it consumed her and became her identity? I cringe when I hear someone say she lives for her children.

If that is her reason for living, what happens when the children grow up and move away? What if one dies? What if there is a family rift? Motherhood should be viewed as an extremely important, God-given role. When viewed as a reason for being it can become a self-consuming false identity.

A wedding is cause for celebration and a long-lived marriage is even more reason to rejoice. This is certainly not the problem it has been in days gone by, but a woman who identifies herself only as the wife of Mr. So-and-So runs into problems. She can find herself living for him and the relationship and submerging her true self. Being a wife is an important role, not an identity.

As women, we have often been told by the church that our true goal is marriage and motherhood. We have been led to believe the lie that we can’t be called to ministry without the “covering” of a husband. My heart grieves for women who buy into this and who never fulfill their calling, never discover their true identity because they believe they have “missed it”. And they spend their lives grieving what they never had. They can feel like failures in the eyes of God because they believed the lie.

Let me re-emphasize the importance of being a Godly wife and mother. These roles are designed by God, blessed and ordained of Him. They are to be examples of the relationship of Christ and the Church.

But they were never meant to be identities.

This is part 5 of a series on identity

Part 1| Who Do You Think You Are?