Identity

     I've been up in the air a lot about what I'm going to do with my life. I'm lost, and to get down to the point, I have a hard time identifying with anything anymore. Am I a businessman? A photographer? A writer? A want-to-be architect? I don't know. And I've had the insatiable urge to try to express myself lately. I don't really care what I'm expressing, but I feel as though I have to materialize some inward aspect of myself, to put it out into the world so I can say Here I am world! This is me! But ultimately photography, writing, and art are not as much about expressing yourself as expressing the world around you. That and me not being great at photography, writing, or art, have led me to be frustrated and, honestly, pretty uptight and angsty.
     But I just remembered something about an hour ago. Having realized that my crisis is likely an identity one, a thought from the book The Reason for God began to resonate in my head. Timothy Keller has a good section in it that talks about how any identity not founded on God is unstable. Many people choose to form their identity around their career, their hobbies, their family, their lifestyle, etc. But Keller points out that all of these are transitory. Careers change, hobbies are outgrown, family and friends continually disappoint, and lifestyles change with the times. If, however, you base your identity on God, on being a Christian and an unworthy yet forgiven human being, you hold an absolutely stable identity. How wonderful it is to always know who you are––a redeemed child of Christ. When you have this as your basis of identity, confidence and peace exude from you.
     Except that doesn't always happen.
     Somehow I've lost sight of that––what I felt a couple months ago I haven't had since. The pressures of school, the craziness of business, and the joys and stresses of being in a relationship have filled my head instead. I have forgotten about what I felt before because I simply didn't need it. When everything in life looked great, and I could base my identity on other things, there wasn't the need to maintain my identity as a Christian. I filled my identity with my life. Now as uncertainty fills my life, my identity seems to have evaporated. Back is the angst, restlessness, and unhappiness.
     I need to get myself and my identity back to where it was.