Our Identity and the Freedom to Serve
Jennifer j. camp
[__] min read ⭑ [total article words/265=mins]
I will not tire of this — my fascination with people and my desire to understand what it means for them to feel alive, curious and filled with wonder. People who live fully awake to the weight of themselves are irresistible. There is nothing more attractive, alluring and captivating. Can you think of someone in your life who feels the weight of their identity? They know who they are because they’ve let themselves feel it. They are not ashamed. They make no excuses about their personality — feeling neither insufficient nor too much. They know they are loved like they are, so shame has no hold on them. No, they are not self-focused to the point of their true self vanishing. Instead, they are others-focused and yet love themselves too — knowing that they can only love another person to the extent that they appreciate their mark upon a person’s life. Not because they need that other person to validate their worth, but rather because they know, deep down, that they are part of something bigger. How remarkable is that? And even if they can’t fully understand what that “bigger thing” is, they are unafraid to experience it. How could they not, they think? This life is holy and wonderful, and heck, yes, I want all of it. Why wouldn’t I?
I am mesmerized by this attitude — and you can feel it in the people around you. The rowing coach whose praise for his athletes is not about how fast they can move a boat (or not only that) but about their character: He wants his athletes to know that he sees their hearts; they are valuable and wanted; they are worth being here. The friend who loves with a wholehearted beauty that makes the pain in your heart bearable. She helps you stand. She knows there is a beauty to you that you can’t even see, and she will fight for you to see it, too.
You can feel the people who love you wholeheartedly. There is an ease and generosity to them that makes being vulnerable and honest with them possible. People like this make me feel safe — like I can share the most fragile parts of my heart, and there is space for those parts of myself to land.
Our hearts are breathtakingly beautiful. They are tender and robust, resilient and fragile. They can hold uncomfortable, painful realities while remaining open and moving toward hope for a better day.
This identity is the one I cling to in this season of transition as we attended our oldest and youngest children’s graduations within two weeks of each other. I hold the weight of memory, love, hope and loss. Who am I, and who will I become? How will I live open-hearted, willing to bear love’s sadness and joy — with the capacity to fully feel and not shut down when all is changing and I can’t control a thing?
“You are not your own, yet you want, desperately, to be your own. To stand, with authority in my name, you must bend low. If you do this, all you do and love will be blessed, and you will be blessed.”
Perhaps the focus on what is here, what is now and the hope of what is to come steers my heart to safety. The memory of the past, both the beautiful and the terrible — does not hold the hope I need. The past is not safe. From it, I glean wisdom — and feel gratitude — but to remain present and focused on loving others around me, I must live surrendered and open for what is to come — all the unknown, the good, complex and beautiful, even if I can’t see it yet.
In a recent conversation with God about these things, I hear him speak this:
“You are not your own, yet you want, desperately, to be your own. To stand, with authority in my name, you must bend low. If you do this, all you do and love will be blessed, and you will be blessed.”
And I am reminded of the freedom offered to us when we combine the bearing of selflessness with our true, solid identity in Christ:
“You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love” (Galatians 5:3).
As I struggle with this with Jesus in the pages of my journal, feeling fear, resistance and doubts in my heart, I look into his eyes, see his kind face:
“Wait. Listen for my voice. Don’t rush.”
And as I ask him how I can love wholeheartedly, with this freedom that comes from loving others as much as myself, he responds:
“You know.”
Jennifer Camp is a poet and listener who delights in investigating the deeper places of the heart. She founded Gather Ministries with her husband, Justin; is Editor-at-Large of Rapt, a multi-award-winning digital magazine; and manages Loop Collective, a community for women who pursue deeper connection with God. She also wrote Breathing Eden and The Uncovering, a collection of her poems.
