New Identity

I turn 50 next week. Whew - saying that out loud is kind of shocking to me. Some days I feel every day of 50, but others I imagine I am still in young adulthood. I realize that is kind of a reach since I have a son who is in early adulthood. But I don’t feel fifty.

In these 50 years, I have been daughter, student, wife, mom, teacher, friend, and counselor. I’ve always gone by Renae, and I’ve been aggravated by people calling me Susan (my given first name.) I have been Miss Rickles and Mrs Perry. I have been called Mrs Renae by polite southern children and their parents. My closest friends and family know me by NaeNae. I have had other nicknames too - cruel ones and sweet ones and silly ones. All of these names and nicknames are part of my story in one way or another.

I have been thinking a lot about identity lately. Maybe it is hitting 50 years. Maybe it comes with rediscovering my voice. I think it also comes from a lot of hard inner work.

For most of my life, I was defined by who I was married to or who my family of origin is. I introduced myself as “the pastor’s wife” or as the mom of ______. The first time I attended our women’s Bible Study at Pell City FUMC, our leader and pastor required us to introduce ourselves without telling who we were related to or what our vocation is. I am not the only one who inwardly cringed at this task. Who we are is intrinsically linked to others in our lives.

I am discovering, though, that I must learn who I am apart from anyone else. And so I continue the work I began with my Counselor 3 & 1/2 years ago. Newly widowed, I sat grieving and raw and unsure of who I was. I have done a lot of work between that time and now. And I honestly still have a long way to go.

Like many of you, I choose a word each January to guide my exploration and soul work for the upcoming year. I say “choose,” but mostly I feel led to a specific word. Last year, my word was “balance,” which seems tragically funny given the events of 2020. But I did find balance in a lot of areas.

This year, as I was praying and waiting for a word to entice me, Holy Spirit kept whispering “beloved.” Y’all, I’m not gonna lie - I argued over this one. I wanted something more productive, something that didn’t make me flush with anxiety when I told someone my word was “beloved.” I grew up singing “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.” I felt like I should have this one down without a year of exploration.

But nothing else came. And slowly I have accepted that I have a lot of work to do in accepting myself as beloved.

I want to believe I am beloved by the Creator who made me and shaped me. But honestly, I struggle.

I struggle to believe I am loved when I’m not being a helper to someone.

I struggle to believe I am loved if I am needy.

I struggle to believe I am loved because I have been wounded.

I also have work to do in seeing the belovedness in people who I vehemently disagree with and those who have wounded me.

And so, despite my grumblings, my word for 2021 is beloved. This year, I will work to more fully understand how my Creator sees me and those around me as beloved. There is much work to be done in my soul this year.