How do you know who you are? Most of the time, we look at our own actions and thoughts and the reactions of those around us to tell us who we are. Sometimes we take personality tests, look at the grades we got in school, look at promotions we’ve gotten at work, take into account the things we’ve accomplished or ask close friends and family to help us put language to who we think we are. But there is still a deeper question that doesn’t seem to get answered no matter who we ask. Who am I and am I enough?
We all have a bit of imposter syndrome, walking around feeling like we have fooled everyone into thinking we are capable, accomplished, not terrible human beings. No analysis from a test or a description from a loved one seems to really hit at what we want to know: who are we and is it enough?
We crave to be seen and to be known fully. And yet we are scared about what someone might think about us if we actually let them see who we are. We are afraid that at our core, we are not enough—and we aren’t sure that our hearts could take knowing for sure that we don’t measure up, that we are lacking.
Timothy Keller has an amazing quote on this:
“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. “
When we don’t know who we are, when we are starting to doubt that we are worth being seen and known, we can go straight to the only being in existence who knows all the nooks, crannies, messy corners of who you are. We can sit in God’s presence and ask Him, “Who am I?” And through the breath in the wind, through the silence in the night sky, through the rumble of rain, through the details in your finger prints, through the clouds that cover the sun, through the thump-thump of your own heart, throughout all things created, made, delighted over, and sustained by the God of the Universe—through all of these, you can hear the whisper of the truth being song over and over again: you are loved.