I’ve been thinking a lot about identity lately.
It seems like we come into this world without one. But pretty quickly, the people around us begin assigning one to us.
It starts with our name. Our parents give us that.
Then other relatives get involved. When I was young, I had an aunt who wanted to be a beautician.
She needed someone to practice cutting hair on. She didn’t want to cut my sisters’ hair because they had beautiful hair. So she said to my mother, “Let me cut Darlene’s hair. It’s just plain and brown. It’s not special.”
I became the kid who was “just plain and not special.”
I’m sure my aunt didn’t think of me that way. But that was the meaning my young mind gave to her comment. I spent years trying to prove that there was something special about me. I felt a constant pressure to perform well, to excel, to distinguish myself. Something inside me needed to disprove that label.
This is how it happens.
We become “the kid with the temper” or “the little girl who talks too much.” Maybe we become the boy who overeats, or the kid with the freckles. I can think of hundreds of identities that get assigned to us as children. The important thing is this: those identities come from outside of us. And because we don’t yet know who we are, we accept them as truth.
As we grow into adults, we accumulate more labels. Mother. Father. Sister. Brother. Worker. Caregiver. Provider. Troublemaker. Success story. Disappointment.
These are identities, but they are not who we really are.
We are the ones who carry those titles. Beneath them, we still exist. Yet many of us live our entire lives according to identities that were never chosen, and often, never true.
What People Say vs. the Deeper Voice
My dad used to say, “It don’t matter what people say about William Henry. It only matters what God says.”
This week, while reflecting on identity, his words came back to me.
I’ve spent most of my life immersed in biblical stories, and they surfaced naturally as I thought about this. You might see these stories as sacred history. Some may view them as spiritual metaphor. Others could consider them cultural mythology. They all return again and again to the same human pattern.
In the story of Abraham, he is seen by others as a wanderer, unsettled, rootless. Yet the deeper voice in the story names him friend and covenant-keeper. His identity is tested repeatedly, especially when the future seems uncertain.
David is viewed as the least important member of his family. Just a shepherd, young, ruddy and overlooked. But the story reveals a deeper identity waiting beneath the surface. It reveals what the God he wrote songs about called him: poet, warrior, leader. He is not spared hardship. Instead, every challenge prepares him for who he is becoming.
Ruth is labeled foreigner and widow, defined by loss and displacement. Yet she steps forward anyway. She is guided by loyalty and quiet courage. Her life becomes part of a much larger story than she could have imagined.
Esther is known as an orphan, powerless and hidden. When the moment comes, she must make a decision. She can either live inside the identity given to her or risk everything to embrace the one she senses within.
Moses is called many things by the world around him: adopted outsider, criminal and forgotten shepherd. Yet he is drawn, again and again, toward a deeper calling. In his case, the Great I Am spoke through a burning bush. It asked him to confront Pharaoh.
Joseph is dismissed as a foolish dreamer by his own brothers. That label follows him into betrayal, imprisonment, and isolation. And yet, the very qualities that made him an outcast eventually place him in a position of great responsibility.
The pattern repeats. Gideon doubts himself, yet is called forward anyway. Daniel and his friends are reduced to captives, prisoners of war, yet are recognized for wisdom and skill. John the Baptist is dismissed as strange and extreme, yet remembered as a forerunner, a voice preparing the way.
Even Jesus is called many things. teacher, troublemaker, devil, liar, and madman. But the foundation of his life rests on a quieter truth: Beloved Son in Whom I AM Well Pleased.
In every one of these stories, the same thing happens. Society names a person according to limitation or loss. That person is tested precisely at the point of that label. Growth requires challenging the identity imposed from the outside. Then, under pressure, a deeper identity emerges.
And this pattern is not limited to ancient texts.
I once knew a woman who was labeled “too sensitive” on a writers’ forum I visited. People made fun of her stories, of her. She learned to shrink herself, to apologize for her emotions. Then one day, it happened. An editor for a major publishing house actually read her manuscript. She was offered a lush contract. Her novel became a New York Times best seller. She stopped going to the writers’ forum. She had a new identity. They called her a wannabe, but the editor labeled her a success.
I’ve also known men who were told they were “not academic,” “not gifted,” or “not leadership material.” Later, they discovered that their way of thinking didn’t fit narrow systems. However, they flourished in creative, entrepreneurial, or deeply relational work. One that I’m thinking of right now is an acclaimed artist.
The labels were never the truth. They were simply incomplete stories. Or in most cases, false identities.
What’s Your Identity?
My father grew up a fourth-generation Mexican-American in the Appalachian foothills during the 1950s. His father was born in an all-Black schoolhouse. His siblings attended the Rosenwald School. For much of his life, my dad tried to pass as white. His uncles disciplined him if he revealed anything that marked his heritage. Poverty added another layer of shame.
For years, he believed those labels defined him.
Over time, something shifted. He found a deeper sense of identity, one rooted not in economics or appearances, but in belonging. He stopped hiding and embraced his ancestry. He encouraged me to trace our family line, not to prove worth, but to reclaim truth.
Like my dad, most of us wear labels for years without questioning them.
What if we set them down?
What if, instead of asking who the world says we are, we listened for the quieter voice inside? How would we see ourselves if we heard the one that speaks beneath conditioning, fear, and expectation?
When I asked that question myself, the answer didn’t come as words from outside. It arrived as a still, steady knowing. Clear and undeniable. Strong enough that I began letting go of every label that contradicted it.
Stepping into our true identity almost always brings resistance. I call it a dark night of the soul. It’s confrontation with our own giants, our own fiery furnaces. David faced a giant. Ruth left her homeland. Esther stood before a king. Daniel faced lions. Moses faced a pharaoh. John the Baptist gave his life. Jesus faced a cross.
Transformation is rarely comfortable.
But the point is this. The most important identity we will ever live from is not the one the world assigns. It’s the one we recognize as true on the inside.
That identity has been there all along.
One last thing, your true identity is never demeaning. It is always beautiful.
