Our identity is a fragile thing, easily pliable, manipulated and wrongly defined by the challenges and difficult circumstances of life, including illness.  Learning to lean into the truth of who God says we are is a choice to step into brave. It’s a choice to reclaim and protect our identity.

I’ve invited Lois McKiernan to share her Made for Brave story and how she battles the identity lies lurking behind the very thing we have no control over –  chronic illness.  I’m sure you’ll find encouragement and hope in her journey of brave faith.

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Different. Pathetic. Useless.

Just a few of the labels that have been flung at me throughout my life. Labels that stuck, that wrapped themselves around my heart without me even realizing.

Every single one of them a lie straight from the enemy.

My experience of childhood wasn’t the average one. At age 3, I fell ill with a mysterious illness. Before, I was stocky and sturdy, playing outside all day, running around with boundless energy. After a virus that never seemed to clear up, I grew paler and thinner as I lay on a sofa in a darkened room, unable to bear movement, noise or light without searing pain.

A year of tests finally yielded a diagnosis: Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (also known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome).

Aside from the physical symptoms it manifested, my illness brought with it a whole new way in which others viewed me. Before, I was just a normal kid. But as the years passed, it became clearer and clearer to see that I was different.

I was weak and frail. I could no longer run around all day with the other kids or even make it to school full-time. There were days I couldn’t even lift my head or sit up, because of the bone-deep exhaustion and pain.

One year turned into five, then into ten, fifteen, twenty. And on it still goes. I’m in my early 30s now and even now, my life is not average. My illness still floods my body with exhaustion, weakness, pain and a host of uncomfortable symptoms on a daily basis. But some of the shackles have been left behind, along the way.

For years, I believed the lie that my illness and my identity were one and the same. That when anyone looked at me, all they could see was my illness. That I wasn’t a valid person – just a sick one.

The enemy still propels these lies into society today.

People (born and pre-born) with illnesses, disabilities, abnormalities or weakness are targeted as less-than. Abnormal. Incompetent. Dispensable.

But God doesn’t see it that way.

Even in my physical weakness, He knows and cares for me. He binds up my wounds and gives me strength to keep going. Why? Because I am precious in His sight.

“…you are precious to me.

   You are honored, and I love you.” Isaiah 43:4  (NLT)

I’ll never forget the first time I read those words, and how they jumped right off the page of the Bible and into my heart, undoing all the tangled labels and lies that the enemy had tried to make me believe for years about my identity.

I am loved by the God who created the universe.

The God who once formed a human body from the dust of the ground and breathed life into it. The God who knits together human bodies in the womb today.

As His creation, My illness does not define my identity – my Creator does. God has called me precious, honored and loved.

God has called me precious, honored and loved. Share on X

And just as thrilling to know? My sin doesn’t define my identity either. The same God who cares for me and helps me in my physical weakness helped me in my spiritual weakness.

When I was wandering aimlessly, living in sin and surrounded by darkness, He saved me by the sacrificial blood of Jesus – the Way, the Truth and the Life. He paid my fine, which allowed me to go free. Thanks to His redemption plan, I am no longer guilty in His sight.

My identity is wrapped up in Him.

Not in my illness, not in my past, not in anything I’ve done or have. My identity is inseparable from His love and grace. I am not my illness. I am not useless, or a waste of space, or pathetic. I am not incompetent or dispensable.

My identity is inseparable from God's love and grace. Share on X

I am a precious, honored and loved creation of the Creator…

And so are you.

 

 

 

 

Lois is a forgiven child of God, a wife, a mother, a writer, a navigator of chronic illness and an incessant fact-checker. She writes at WhereTruthLives.com to equip and encourage women to impact the world by living out the truth of God’s Word.

Blog | https://wheretruthlives.com

Pinterest | https://www.pinterest.com/wheretruthlives

Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/wheretruthlives

Twitter | https://www.twitter.com/wheretruthlives

 

Catch Up On Previous Made for Brave Stories…Here

Sisters, we are called to walk the way of hope instead of the way of defeat.  We must claim more than our title of “Daughter of the King.” We must step up and also claim our position.

And we must claim these together. As a sisterhood; a sisterhood of brave women who stand strong in the promises of who God is and who we are.

• We all are Made for Brave.
• We are made to live for something authentic and brave.
• In living brave, we silence the past, transform the future, and take a front row seat to God’s wild and uncontainable love!

So, I’m inviting you to join this Made for Brave Sisterhood, each Monday as we share our stories and allow God to bring hope and healing. Let’s commit to being authentic and brave, one step at a time, side by side, holding each other up and nudging each other toward our true selves. And let’s claim the victory waiting on the other side of brave; for ourselves and our sisterhood.

Let’s celebrate our tears and our struggles as we peel away the layers of fear to reveal the beauty of brave.

In living brave, we silence the past, transform the future, and take a front row seat to God’s wild and uncontainable love! #MadeforBrave #Hope Share on X

Let’s risk everything that brave requires for everything that brave has to offer…

Becoming who we were created to be!

Do you have a Made for Brave story to share? Get the writing guidelines and submit your stories HERE!

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