Reframe Your Shame: 7-Day Prayer Guideಮಾದರಿ

Reframe Your Identity

True identity is found in whose you are and who God says you are. When we accept Jesus as Savior, we take on His identity and we belong to Him. We can choose to see ourselves not as ordinary or less than but as children of the living God. When we walk in the assurance of our identity being in Jesus Christ, we reframe our misconstrued view of our identity. We can exchange false reality and confusion for freedom and peace.

Who am I? What was I created for? We ask these fundamental questions, longing for answers to which we can cling. They inherently show up in early childhood when we look to people around us, such as parents, teachers, coaches, and peers, to determine our worth, value, and place in life. We desire to fit in and belong. We look externally for answers to our questions about our identity rather than internally.

As early as I can remember, I struggled with my identity. This is true for many, if not all of us. Who am I and what was I created to do? Do I fit in? Where do I belong? These are questions we ask ourselves. We question our sense of place in this big world. Many psychologists believe that identity formation is one of the most important conflicts human beings face.

Our go-to tends to be finding identity in others, such as our parents and siblings, extended family, spouses, or friends we hang around with. We look to others in early childhood, especially our parents, to affirm that we are good, but what if our parents don’t affirm us for some reason? As adults, we may look to what we do in our career, parenting, serving in the church, and so forth for our identity. The problem with that is these are all external things, yet identity is discovered from within. Who are you beneath the fear and the shame? Who are you past what you do? Who are you when things like jobs or people transition out of your life or get taken away by job layoffs or death? What happens when you become an empty nester, underprepared for the emptiness in your home and heart, left with just yourself? If we struggle to know and identify who we are in ourselves, life events can create identity crises in us.

Many of us have experienced a bully in our lives. Someone who used name-calling or slander to one-up themselves, putting us down to feel better about themselves. I am sure someone has hurled hurtful or verbally abusive words at you. Anything less than nurturing can go into the category of abuse. When we allow untruths, divisive rumors, or attacks on our character and reputation to define our identity, we are in danger of sliding down the self-esteem scale. We must know for ourselves who we are at the core so that, when circumstances or people tell us otherwise, we can combat that with truth and not be shaken emotionally or believe a lie about ourselves.

When I discovered that my identity was rooted in God, something changed in me. Having my identity in God reframed the way I viewed myself as I turned to the truth of God’s Word to find out how God sees me. Being a child of God meant in simple terms that I was His daughter. God’s daughter. A child of God (Romans 8:14; 2 Corinthians 6:18; Galatians 3:26). But what if we have a skewed filter of what it means to be a child of God because our experience with our earthly parents has been nothing short of disappointment, abandonment, neglect, abuse, and mistreatment? Maybe your parents didn’t know how to be emotionally supportive or struggled with mental health issues or addiction themselves and didn’t have the knowledge, ability, or mental capacity to be what you needed them to be. This makes viewing God as Father challenging for some. How do we receive God’s love if we don’t trust Him or see Him as safe?

We can turn to countless scriptures to meditate on and think of often when we fall into a self-esteem rut or shame attack, struggling with how we feel about ourselves. They will not only redirect our thinking but reprogram it as well. Ephesians 2:10 assures us, “We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago” (NLT). The psalmist wrote that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). And we can take comfort in knowing that God chose us; we did not choose Him (John 15:16). My prayer for you is that you dig deeper in learning more about who you are and take confidence in knowing that you were specifically designed the way you are, flaws and all, for a purpose. May you find freedom as you discover and accept your identity.

Prayer Guide

• Thank God that your identity is in Him and not in the choices you’ve made in life.

• Ask the Lord to help you reframe your identity and to feel His love in your daily life.

• Tell Jesus those things and/or people who have impacted your life negatively.

• Ask Him to help you move past them.

• Tell Jesus those things and/or people who have impacted your life positively.

• Ask Him to bring more people into your life who can help you understand how God sees you and how much He loves you.

Prayer for You

Precious Savior, thank You for seeing the true me and giving me the opportunity to change my life. Help me to look at the life You have before me and not look back to the past. May I forgive those who have hurt me in the past, just as You forgive me for the choices I have made. Show me those in my life that I need to ask for forgiveness. Lord, I want my identity to come from

You, not from hurtful things and choices in the past. Help me begin to see and grasp the depth of Your love and Your sacrifice for me. Amen.