At the end of high school and all through college, I really committed to dance – taking ballet classes, performing in my college’s yearly dance production, and more.
And yet I felt nervous about sharing my love of dance with people I didn’t know, because I was afraid of the reactions and unkind comments I’d sometimes gotten. These responses made me feel some discomfort about who I was. Even after I graduated from college, I still felt hesitant to share this important facet of my life.
Then one evening while traveling abroad, I was at a party when someone asked what I really enjoyed. I paused nervously, but my cousin burst right in: “John loves dancing!” The person I was talking with wanted to know more, so I slowly started sharing, and the conversation went well.
After the party, my cousin asked why I hadn’t jumped in to reply. When I explained, she said something like, “Well, who you are is who you are, and no one gets to have any say in that.”
I was dumbfounded that I hadn’t thought about this so simply before. But I really loved how happy I felt about finally being able to share my interests freely, and I decided to explore more deeply what it meant to be content with myself.
During this trip, I’d committed to daily deep dives into the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science. Now, with the key theme “Who am I?” emblazoned in thought, I considered what Christian Science had to say on this subject.
The Bible’s promises and invitations related to identity were both encouraging and practical. Here are a few:
“God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).
“Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9).
“It is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).
We are given our identity and our worth from the very beginning. What we are is not a product of the things we do and the opinions others hold of us; rather, what we are is the foundation of the things we do and holds up regardless of the opinions others have of us.
It was fun and freeing to realize that others’ opinions about our interests – and more importantly, what we are in the first place – just don’t hold any sway over the fundamental fact of our identity as God’s spiritual offspring or of God’s wonderful love for us. This freedom opened the door for me not just to share my love of dance but also to more easily make friends and more sincerely appreciate and value other people’s gifts.
Now, that’s not to say that God loves us despite our flaws and sins. Rather, He knows and loves us as we truly are: spiritual, flawless, and entirely lovable. That’s our real identity, because as the Bible says, and as Christ Jesus showed so fully, God is Love and has created us in His own image.
While we all can recognize areas for improvement, those improvements do not change our fundamental, God-created nature. It’s our view of ourselves that improves, along with our ability to more faithfully act in accord with the way God made us. Our worth through all this is a constant, whether or not we recognize it, and whether or not anyone else does either.
I love one of the ways Mrs. Eddy explains our essential nature in her book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “Man is not God, but like a ray of light which comes from the sun, man, the outcome of God, reflects God” (p. 250). We exist in all our reflected goodness because God exists in all His goodness. We can have an increased recognition of our worth as we embrace these spiritual facts.
This isn’t egotism. It’s an invitation to consider that, instead of needing to wade through our own or others’ opinions of us, we can start from a perspective that is above and beyond any limited sense of personality. It’s an invitation to consider what God’s love means, both for what we are and for how we see ourselves. This love is trustworthy and changeless – a solid foundation for our sense of worth!
Adapted from an article published in the Christian Science Sentinel’s online TeenConnect section, Sept. 26, 2023.
