Who Am I?
By: FB Smit
Since the earliest times, humans have questioned their existence in the world. Questions about the purpose and significance of life include:
Who is God to Me?
How do I Hear God?
Who Am I?
What Am I Worth?
How Do I Accept Who I Am?
Does God Want Me to Be Happy?
Is it All Up to Me?
Why Do I Suffer?
Through inner healing prayer, we ask God, Who Am I?
“Where is God in your life?” asked Helen’s inner healing prayer facilitator.
Helen replied, “God is looking down on me somewhere from heaven.”
From the physical remoteness of where Helen saw God in relation to herself, the facilitator surmised that Helen felt distant from God and unwittingly kept Him at a distance.
Our relationships with our earthly fathers often affect our beliefs about who we are in relation to Abba, Father. Our fathers love us through their shortcomings, imperfections, wounds, fears, and sins. From the imperfect love we receive, we can get sideways in our beliefs about whether God is our perfect Father and we are His beloved children. Yet, God loves us perfectly and His ways with us are without flaw.
Helen’s earthly father had died when she was young. Helen desired a deeper relationship with God the Father, as she felt disconnected from Him, much like she did with her deceased father.
Her grieving mother gave Helen an additional feeling of parental abandonment. Exacerbated by feeling disconnected from her mother, Helen thought that no one loved or accepted her and that others tolerated her at best.
She harbored the lie that she didn't matter, and the same lie transferred to her belief about God – a lie that felt undeniably true to her.
The facilitator asked, "When was the first time you recall feeling that you don’t matter?"
Right away, Helen recalled a memory from her 6-year-old birthday party.
Her mother, aunts, uncles, and cousins had gathered for her birthday celebration. One of her family members suggested they give Helen birthday ‘spankings.’ In the tradition of birthday spankings, the number of so-called spankings matches your age and is done in fun.
While the spankings are just love pats, not meant to cause pain or fear, in Helen's 6-year-old mind, she was sure they would hurt. The dread made her run and hide. To avoid the flogging that she imagined, Helen hid in an upstairs closet in her home. Her family looked for her, calling and searching, but she was so scared that she wouldn’t come out. After a while, her family gave up and stopped searching for her.
After hours had passed, Helen gathered the courage to peek out of the closet. Then, she crept down the stairs and peered into the kitchen area. There, she found her family had eaten her birthday dinner, consumed most of her birthday cake, and enjoyed a lively conversation.
At the sight of her birthday party having occurred without her, the lie that she didn’t matter nestled into the narrow confines of her heart, sealing it into her innermost self.
To help unpack the pain, the facilitator suggested Helen go back to the memory of being inside the closet as the unloved 6-year-old. She was invited to look around to see who else was there with her. Jesus was with her. He patiently sat on a box opposite her.
Though He sat on the far end of the closet, Helen sensed that Jesus knew she was scared. Helen also sensed that, in contrast to her family who had given up their search and had gone ahead with her birthday celebration without her, Jesus had all the time in the world to stay with her.
When we encounter Jesus, like Helen, it is beneficial for the person to invite Jesus close. Helen needed proximity to Jesus for her healing. With this thought, the facilitator asked Helen, “Would you like Him to hold your hand?”
Helen nodded and when He extended His arm, His hand felt huge in comparison to hers.
“I don’t know why His hand is so big,” Helen noted with a laugh.
The facilitator replied, “If He’s extending only His hand, then He may want to show you how much He loves you by allowing you to feel how much he loves you through the size of his hand.”
“How would you feel if He put His arm around you?”
She consented, and He moved next to her. Helen’s head came to rest on Jesus’ chest. She forgot about the birthday spankings momentarily and sighed at the feeling of security, which seemed foreign yet comforting.
Then, as if remembering her lie, Helen's head popped up as her mind flooded with many questions. Here, the 6-year-old Helen still couldn't believe Jesus cared about her and commented, “There are all of these people in the world. I know you do this for everybody, so I’m not really special.” Though Helen didn’t say it, she thought, I don’t matter to you.
Jesus responded, “I love being here with you. I’m here with you at this moment.”
Helen pushed back, “Do you enjoy being here with just me?"
"More than anything," responded Jesus.
“There are so many people in the world. Why are you here with ME?" asked Helen.
“Because this is where I am,” said Jesus.
The words, “This is where I Am,” shot through the facilitator’s body like a silent boomerang, reminding her of when God refers to Himself as “I am who I AM” in scripture (Exodus 3:14).
Helen shared the facilitator’s thoughts. At that moment, the words of God referring to Himself reverberated through her. Helen and the prayer facilitator sensed that God the Father had spoken His name and title through His Son. This moment, where the Father made Himself known through the Son, became the first step in a breakthrough for Helen.
━━━━━━ ◦ ❖ ◦ ━━━━━━
In John 14:11, Jesus says, “The Father is in me, and I am in the Father”. The Father and the Son are one. When Helen was having a difficult time receiving God the Father’s love, He came to her in the person of Jesus.
Even if there are parts of us in our wounded state that cannot receive fully being in the presence of God the Father, He makes it so that He can come close to us through His Son because we are God’s children by adoption.
The good Father, Our Father, cares what’s going on in our hearts, loves our company, and wants to comfort, and dispel the lies that keep us trapped and bound. As He did for Helen, He will do what it takes to bring this about, including sending His only son. Through Jesus, He was present to Helen. Likewise, He is present to us to listen, restore, and answer our questions.
If life’s experiences and pains make this hard for us to believe, here is the truth to the question of Who Am I?:
I am a child of God who loves me.
The LORD, your God, is in your midst,
a mighty savior,
Who will rejoice over you with gladness,
and renew you in his love,
Who will sing joyfully because of you.
Zeph. 3:17
Where is God in your life?
