Love is my identity

Over the past year I have really been wrestling with this whole identity concept. I've heard every college student goes through it, but really I wonder if that's true sometimes. I mean I don't hear anyone else talking about not feeling like they have a place they belong to or a niche.

College is a weird place too if you think about it. We come here with all of these strangers and live with them. There are tons of clubs and teams that people are encouraged to become a part of and everyone makes their own mini life. We have jobs and homes and community and it all seems like we recreate ourselves once we're here away from our parent's home.

But what if the communities we envisioned ourselves becoming apart of don't happen the way we saw it? What if we don't make the team or find out that we're not as (whatever) as we thought we were. What if you can't find that sweet spot that everyone talks about and sees on TV?

It kind of feels like a mid-life crisis... or at least what I think it must feel like.

There's almost a pang of loss or a sense of low-grade grief because our expectations are totally flipped. We try to just pick up and go on.. find a new community or thing to invest in.. but after a while the searching is kind of exhausting. I mean, shouldn't we have found whatever everyone else is talking about by now?

This is the dialogue that's been in my head. Tiring isn't it? It has no end and, really, no hope. And I think it's a little too tragic to be reality.

I think God has been trying to tell me for a while now that my relationship with Him is the only thing that makes me me. All of the other stuff doesn't stick to me the way He does. I can have the biggest group of friends or just one and still feel lonely or unfulfilled. I can be the star in every play, starter on every team, and leader of any ministry and still feel like a stranger to myself. Whatever I'm searching for won't ever become clear to me unless I have God close to me holding the flashlight.

While this not so easy to keep in my head when I start to feel lost, the concept is so simple that I'm ashamed to say I forgot it. I can't feel like me without God! My search for identity in the communities here is meaningless unless I have every intention of growing closer to God and loving other people through it.

It's just like 1 Corinthians 13 says-- I can't do anything without love! Nothing else will last without it. Everything I'm good at will eventually end and my group of friends won't be impressive forever. If I have love the things I do will matter forever.

So this semester I want to focus on keeping my sense of home in my heart rather than in my communities. I want to feel at peace within myself so that I don't feel a need for a certain community to define me. I want to feel at home with God in my heart when everything around me starts to look unfamiliar and lonely. I want my identity to be love.