Sin Vergüenza: Finding a Home in the Tensions of IdentitySample

Day 2: Walking in the Darkness of Identity 

Imagine you’re a college graduate and it’s your first day at work. You began your day with excitement for the new adventure. You’ve picked out your first day clothes just like you would’ve in the junior high days, only now your sneakers are replaced with something more “business casual.” You’ve toned down your hair a bit so that you’ve left enough in the hairdo, but not so much as to feel like you might be drawing too much attention to yourself. Without consciously knowing it, you’ve comported your identity in such a way that little could be done for your new peers to withhold acceptance. 

You’ve arrived at the workplace ready to go and by lunch time you’ve managed to survive. You’ve even gotten a few compliments on your shoes. You overhear conversation from the small group of coworkers waiting their turn to heat up their lunch and listen in for a chance to join the discussion. You find out summer vacation is the topic. 

The other new hires are bonding over Instagram photos from their graduation-gift vacations and you realize you have no photos or similar story to share. Your summer was spent scraping to piece together rent and sending out copies of your resumé despite anxiety and fear something may not work. Disappointed by the dashed hope of relating and fitting in, you back away and decide to eat alone to cope with feelings of isolation and loneliness. 

A day that represented new beginnings and new hopes has turned into a reminder of the very cycle you’ve spent your college years trying to escape. You’re faced again with the pressures of making something presentable of yourself. You struggle in the moment and that feeling of isolation and not measuring up creates a tension not easily resolved. In fact, that tension is not new. You remember the years spent in college pursuing a GPA that will make you employable while also tirelessly pursuing the kind of social affiliations that seemed to actually unlock the back doors of opportunity.

It seems your hope has now evaporated, and you’re left with a never-ending grind to achieve the kind of identity that will finally open the doors of success in your life. You know it is a road that leads to nothing but anxiety and striving, but the pressure of the moment makes it feel you have no other option. You’re tempted to despair. 

For so many coming in from the fringes of our society this experience is all too real.  The pressure of reflecting the value systems and characteristics of majority culture as a means of survival and acceptance cause many of us to suppress our God-given passions and identities. If we’re honest, this kind of living creates heavy burdens of shame, and tireless performance. This is not how God desires for us to live. Further, these social interactions may bring to our awareness very painful personal and societal histories of exclusion and or isolation on the basis of ethnicity and or gender. 

While we may be tempted to look away from these inner wrestles and see performance as the only way, God reveals another option. In the darkness of this wrestle we have the opportunity to meet the God of the Bible who delights in revealing himself. If we let our loneliness and feelings of rejection lead us back to Him, we discover the all-knowing and all-powerful God who delights in giving us deep truth and eternal promises that will guide our lives with purpose and sustainability. 

Reflection: 

• Have you been confronted with feelings of exclusion or isolation based on things out of your control?
• Do you find yourself trying to control the perception of others through performance?
• Have you ever felt shame for giving into the temptation to be something you’re not by reflecting cultural values that may not be your own?
• What promises of God are you holding onto for security and identity?