Breaking Free of Labels
“I’m Divorced.”
Some of the hardest words I’ve ever had to say. Yes, because it brings up the wounds of my broken marriage but also because it’s a label I don’t want to wear.
At first the dialogue in my head went like this…
Divorced doesn’t describe me because…
- I fought for my marriage
- I didn’t choose this
- I didn’t give up
- I believe in the sanctity of marriage
- I am typically wise and I worked hard to choose the right partner.
Ugh that’s hard to confess. Although I had never spoken these words aloud to others, these were the judgements I put on myself. I was looking in the mirror of my judgemental spirit and coming up wanting. I felt like a failure and at the heart of these statements I was fighting to keep my pride intact. I feared that others might judge me even more harshly.
My identity was entangled in how others saw me. And now I was grieving a loss of identity because ultimately I had no problem previously embracing the label of “married”. In that label, I felt accepted, chosen, resilient, and loved.
There is a children’s book “You are special” by Max Lucado where the main character Punchinello lives out his existence trying to avoid gray dots and striving to receive gold stars from his peers for his performance. One day he meets someone who has no stickers- no gold stars or grey dots would stick to her. Punchinello goes to the woodcarver (his creator) and comes to find out that “the stickers only stick to you if they matter to you. The more you trust my love the less you care about their stickers.” Once Punchinello realized that his value was not determined by others, the stickers started to fall off and new ones didn’t stick.
These labels that I allowed to define me were not labels put on me by my own creator, but instead labels that came from the world. These were labels I could choose to reject.
So then, what would it look like to break free of these labels and not allow any label to stick to me?
What does the Lord say about me?
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”
1John3.1-2
We are not known by the world and so therefore the labels of this world do not define us. Even my own clouded image of self is not my true identity. As children of God there is only one label that matters and that is hidden in the redemption of Christ where we come to know our Savior.
So my relationship status is not my identity. “Married”, “Divorced”, “Single” are not my identity because my identity is in Christ once I believe in him. My works also don’t define me.
“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Eph 2:8-9
All the gold stars or successes are not attributed to me. Likewise when I do make mistakes, and I certainly will, the Lord says this is not what I am defined by. I’m a child of God, loved, treasured, and redeemed.
So instead of looking to others or even myself, I am called to seek the Lord.
“I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.”
Psalm 34:3-4
As I seek God, I am delivered from my fear of others’ judgement. And by the grace of our Savior, when I face the mirror, it is not my own judgement but God’s radiance that is reflected.
May we repent of our judgement of others and instead see others with the same measure of grace that our Lord poured out on the Cross.
May our identity be so rooted in Christ that the judgement of others, good and bad, not result in how we see ourselves.
Sources: * You are Special, Max Lucado.