What A Broken Heart Taught Me About Identity
Heartbreak stinks.
As the ‘girl of my dreams’ informed me that our relationship was over, my teenage heart could barely process her words. She’d given me no warning that our relationship was on shaky ground. So, what was the problem?
She proceeded to tell me, in no uncertain terms, that she still liked her old boyfriend. Unbeknownst to me, they had been hanging out during our entire relationship. Ouch.
Devastated, I hung up the phone and tried to remove the knife from my back. A swirl of emotions flooded my broken heart: confusion, rage, jealousy, etc. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I threw open my front door and started sprinting through my neighborhood like a deer wounded from a hunter’s gun.
Thirty years later, I’m a happily married middle-aged man, but I remember my first taste of unrequited love as if it had happened yesterday.
I imagine you’ve got your own heartbreak story, too.
We all do. Except maybe for you it isn’t the sting of a broken, adolescent romance. Maybe it’s the pain from a serious boyfriend/girlfriend in your 20s or 30s. Or a spouse who decided they no longer wanted to be married.
Or perhaps your heartbreak story isn’t romantic at all.
Maybe a friend or family member shattered your trust.
Or a co-worker, who you thought had your back, took credit for something you did.
Whatever the case, these kinds of experiences are painful reminders of just how fickle relationships can be.
Don’t get me wrong. Relationships are a beautiful blessing of God. In fact, God made us to live in communion with one another, sharing the highs and lows of life and enjoying the bonds of love and friendship.
But people are fallible.
Even the best relationships, as wonderful as they can be, still let us down.
That’s why it’s a terrible idea to find your identity in another person.
What do I mean by, “identity?”
Good question.
At its core, our identity is our sense of self-worth. It’s how we answer the question, “Who am I?” Where we choose to find our identity shapes how we think, act, and relate to the world. Basically, our identity influences everything about us.
Looking back on my short-lived teenage romance, I can see now what I couldn’t see then. I had allowed the relationship to define who I was. I had wrapped too much of my identity in having a girlfriend.
(Can you blame me? I was only 18 and she was very pretty.)
When we anchor our identity in people, we subject ourselves to a rollercoaster of emotions. Approval makes us feel valued, while rejection crushes our spirit and leaves us questioning our self-worth.
That first heartbreak, as gut-wrenching as it was, was exactly the wake-up call I needed. Gradually, I would come to learn that there is only one relationship that should define who I am:
My relationship with God, through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.
That might sound a little churchy to you, but trust me, when your identity is rooted in Him, your sense of self-worth is unshakable.
The Bible tells us that through Jesus, God has given us an opportunity to experience His amazing, unfailing love. It’s a love so great that it completely changes who we are. How? We become sons and daughters of God (1 John 3:1). As such, our identity is absolutely, positively, 100% secure. Finding our identity in God helps us keep all our other relationships in perspective. Because our self-worth is built around our relationship with our Heavenly Father, it no longer rises and falls based on the behavior of another person.
And here’s the best part: Unlike our relationships with flawed human beings, His love will never let us down, betray our trust, or break our hearts.
That’s such good news that it makes the ‘lovesick teenager’ in me jump for joy.
Question: Where are you finding your identity? How do you struggle in looking to your marriage, kids, dating relationships, or friendships to define who you are?
Do you want to ask us a follow-up question about identity?
Or do you have a question about how to begin a relationship with God?
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