Fancy dress.

Where is our identity found?? Everybody has an identity whether they realise it or not. When we are born we have the right to be given a name, a date of birth and a place of birth, as a way of giving us some sort of identity. Even before birth we may have an identity, after all, doesn't God state that he knew us before we were even conceived?!

'....My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.' Psalm 139 v 15-16 NIV.

The reason I've put these pictures up is because I thought they mixed with the topic quite well. Sunday before Christmas we had a fancy dress party at church for all the young people, as part of our Christmas celebrations. It was really fun and nearly every person was dressed differently. It was a night of dressing as someone different to ourselves, a time when we could step into the shoes of someone with a different identity and yes, it was fun but also it was just pretend and everybody knew that. It was just for the sake of making a normal party slightly different and more entertaining.

It was for nothing more than fun but that's not true for everyone is it?! I know that everyone goes through phases of finding themselves...learning who we are and what it is we wish to do with our own lives, but this time can be confusing and hard and also full of pressure from those around us. I know that I have only truly discovered who I am since I have left school...since I have come away from the peer pressure that school brings and since I have only carried out things that I have chosen to carry out myself.

If we all look at our lives I'm sure we can see where we have once taken on a different identity to our own..maybe now, maybe in the past, but it doesn't have to be like that. I came to learn that my identity is not in the things of the world, but in the things of the world I am working towards - my identity is in God and who He says I am. When I was at school I was so caught up with trying to have the newest, most fashionable clothes and having some hot guy think the same of me that I forgot the important things. I forgot that none of these things bring consistent and complete happiness. I forgot that these things didn't have to determine who I say I am and what I think of myself. I forgot that people know no different to what the world says brings happiness but that doesn't have to be the case.

Once I remembered God's promises over my life and that I live to serve Him and no other, I became myself. I stood once again in my own identity...created for me before time even began. I guess there is a time before this period of discovering who we are when we actually live in our own identity - when we are children. Yes, we don't tend to look to the future and what we wish to achieve so much, but when we are children we are not pressurised by others so much...we are content as ourselves. We are who we are and there is no questionning. All comes down to believing God as children do, doesn't it?! Having the faith and vulnerability of a child?!

'They will sparkle in his land like jewels in a crown. How attractive and beautiful they will be!...Then how they'll shine! shimmer! glow! the young men robust, the young women lovely!' Zechariah 9 v 16-17 NIV and The Message (emphasis added).

This is our identity...we are HIS. x