Identity Crisis: Recapturing and Reclaiming Our God-Given Identity

By Karie Eaton

In her first book, Beneath the Surface, Karie takes and translates her lesson from counseling young girls and women to what we desiremeaningful and authentic relationships without having to create and maintain a variety of masks to wear. Now in Identity Crisis, Karie helps women recapture and reclaim their God-given identity.

I think for many, our identity is broken. In an increasingly technological world, our identity gets broken more and more, or certainly, we run the risk of it doing so. We now have the ability to be a culprit and a victim of identity theft by our own hands at the same time.

Standing before God on my day of judgment, I wonder what I will really be accountable for. I was not who God designed me to be. The identity given to me was not the identity I lived my life as. Instead, I twisted it, distorted it, and mangled it beyond recognition so that I adapted into an identity I thought the world expected of me. I played God. Will that be my offense? If so, I plead guilty. I imagine there is more than enough evidence to convict me.

In Identity Crisis, we will discuss the self-created barriers to true relationship. If we live behind a mask, we can impress, but we cannot connect. That doesnt sound right, does it? That is not the story I want to be a part of and to have as my life. It sounds lonely. Lets take this journey together.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Apr 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781973626374

Karie Eaton

Karie Eaton is a lay counselor, Bible study leader, and has started numerous womens ministries over the years. She is the author of Beneath the Surface helping women seek how to have more authenticity in their relationship. Karie has a B.A. in Communications and Public Relations as well as a Master Degree in Human Services Counseling. She is a gifted speaker. Karie lives in Olathe, Kansas with husband Mark and their daughter Courtney and son Corey.

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Copyright © 2018 Karie Eaton.

Interior Graphics/Art Credit: Michael P. Eaton/Eaton Design

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Scripture quotations marked (GNT) are from the Good News Translation in Today’s English Version- Second Edition Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.

Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2007, 2013, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Scriptures taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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ISBN: 978-1-9736-2636-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2635-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9736-2637-4 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018904655

WestBow Press rev. date: 4/19/2018

To all those who keep me grounded in my identity—my husband, my children, my family, and my friends.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part 1   Expose

Chapter 1     The Gap

Chapter 2     The Cover-Up

Chapter 3     Mistaken Identity

Chapter 4     Hidden in Plain Sight

Chapter 5     The Search

Part 2   Engage

Chapter 6     It’s About Time

Chapter 7     We Don’t Pick Our Families

Chapter 8     Simplify

Chapter 9     Connection

Chapter 10   Repeat

Part 3   Enrich

Chapter 11   Present

Chapter 12   The Table

Chapter 13   Looking Up

Chapter 14   Lifting Up

Chapter 15   Heart Attack

Epilogue

Notes

Acknowledgments

This book grew out of my desire to rediscover and to reclaim my identity. From the moment we are born, we are shaped by the world around us. Sometimes the unfortunate consequence is a lost identity. Many people have walked with me on my journey, including my husband, my children, my other family members, and my friends. They have come with all of the experience life has given them.

My husband, Mark, has been my constant. He has journeyed with me the longest. Our work with other married couples has offered us encouragement and has validated the love in our own relationship. Mark’s continued unconditional love has allowed me to be more authentic in the search for my identity. Our daughter, Courtney and her husband Vinny, and our son, Corey, have indulged my desire to be a part of their lives even though they are no longer under our roof. Courtney has taught me compassion for others by her example as a teacher, and Corey has taught me to laugh at myself and not to take life too seriously.

My mother, my grandmother, and my aunt have given me a legacy on which to build my life. The stories of my early years and the family traditions shared by these three women have provided a firm foundation for my identity and have kept me from straying too far off course. They are always ready to listen and to encourage me.

As I have passed the half-century mark, the importance of family has grown even more. I have been blessed to have married into a large family. Mike, Shelley, Amy, Roseann, and Martin represent my local team, with my extended family of Debbie, Larry, Angie, Angela, and Lisa loving me from afar. I can’t imagine life without any of them.

My friends continue to play an essential part in my life. Outside of my family, relationships with my friends are what sustain me daily. I could write a book with a chapter dedicated to each of them and still not do justice to their importance in my life. The Lord Jesus has taught me not to walk alone. My friends are too numerous to name, but I thank them all for walking with me.

Introduction

In the middle of his book Scary Close, Donald Miller wrote, If our identity gets broken, it affects our ability to connect.¹ This seemingly random line didn’t seem to fit in the paragraph, yet those words were so profound that they have stuck with me ever since I read them.

In an increasingly technological world, many of us suffer from broken identities or certainly run the risk of doing so. We now have the ability to be the victims of identity theft and the culprits at the same time.

I wonder if, on my judgment day, God will hold me accountable for failing to be the person He designed me to be. The identity given to me was not the identity I lived. Instead I twisted it beyond recognition as I adopted an identity I thought the world expected of me. I played God. Will that be my offense? If so, I plead guilty. I imagine there is more than enough evidence to convict me.

In the case of my identity theft, I am the culprit and the victim. Living at the surface, I have not been authentic. I am unable to connect with others because I am not my true self. Social media is not the kind of connecting I mean. It is just a means of sharing information or worse, of perpetuating a false identity; it is certainly a great way to manage perception.

In Identity Crisis I will discuss the self-created barriers to true relationship. If we live behind a mask, we can impress but we cannot connect. In other words, to get people to love us, we walk away from people altogether. That doesn’t sound right, does it? I don’t want this to be the story of my life. It sounds lonely. I once heard we spend nearly 50 percent of our lives daydreaming about our stories. I’m surprised the percentage isn’t higher.

For me, the sure sign a story is good is how it makes me feel afterward. When an audience remains in the theater after a movie has ended to watch the credits roll, the story was good. People seem to stay out of respect for what they’ve just experienced. I want God to stick around for my credits. I want my life to generate a good conversation, not just a Twitter feed or a like.

What else changes a person but the living of a story? And what does a story entail but the desire for a difficult goal and the willingness to work for it? I’d rather earn the money than win the lottery, because there’s no joy in a reward unless it comes at the end of a story.

I find great hope in these lines from the screenplay of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. What I think is, it’s never too late … or, in my case, too, early, to be whoever you want to be … There’s no time limit, start anytime you want … change or stay the same … there aren’t any rules … We can make the best or worst of it … I hope you make the best … I hope you see things that startle you. Feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people who have a different point of view. I hope you challenge yourself. I hope you stumble, and pick yourself up. I hope you live the life you wanted to … and if you haven’t, I hope you start all over again.² No matter where you find yourself, it is never too late.

We are meant to be in relationship. In fact, the meaning of life is found in relationship with others. Whether it is with a spouse, a neighbor, a relative, or a friend, or with God, we find meaning in relationships. God said, It is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18). While He said this to explain His creation of Eve, the verse applies far beyond Eden. We are not meant to be alone. In fact, loneliness can be one of the worst feelings we experience.

In my first book, I noted that one of women’s greatest fears is the fear of abandonment or, put another way, of being alone. Social scientists are now acknowledging the brain’s need to connect with other brains. They’re calling this social intelligence. In his book Social Intelligence, Daniel Goleman writes, Neuroscience has discovered that our brain’s very design makes it sociable, inexorably drawn into an intimate brain-to-brain linkup whenever we engage with another person. That neural bridge lets us impact the brain—and so the body—of everyone we interact with, just as they do us.³

Goleman and others have discovered that our relationships act as regulators of our emotions. This is especially true as we spend more time with someone and become more closely connected with that person. It makes sense. My husband, for example, can regulate my emotions. So can our children. As parents, we tend to be as happy as our saddest child.

The love of another, especially a spouse, creates such a deep connection that over time two people begin to laugh at the same jokes, to cry at the same Hallmark commercials, and even to experience the same health patterns. How many stories have we read about spouses who have been married for a long time and who die within days or even hours of each other? I love those stories. We probably all do because they speak about a deep connection on an emotional as well as a physical level.

I read one such story about Ed and Floreen Hale, who died hours apart. Sixty years earlier, Ed had vowed never to leave his wife’s side, and they remained together until the end. The depth of their relationship makes me tear up. If the story doesn’t make you cry, the accompanying picture will. Look it up online.

This is the kind of relationship God wants with us. In fact, it is the foundation of His commandments. Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul and with all of your strength (Deuteronomy 6:5). I bet most of us know this verse well, but do we know the verses that follow it? They take this verse to an even deeper level. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:6–9).

Given today’s technology, we might be called to post these verses on our Facebook homepages and to tweet them to all of our followers. But would we? How would that affect our identities? For many of us, today’s challenge isn’t how to profess our faith but how to manage the perception others have of us. As women, we want to be included, and so we want to be seen as worthy of attention from others.

In my first book, I confessed my battle with this issue. As a child I was very sick. In fact, during one period of my life I seemed to spend as much time in the hospital as I did in school. My class once made a giant get-well card for me. One of the boys drew a picture of me with an iron lung. For the first time I realized others saw me as different. I didn’t want to be different. I wanted to be included. When I returned to school, I was afraid I was seen as weak, so I tried to manage the perception my classmates had of me.

I am so thankful I did not have social media in my youth. I would have abused it more than the most addictive drug known to humankind. I would have been both the victim of identity theft and the culprit for it.

So let’s journey together through the stories others have shared with me and through my own story to discover how we can uncover our true identities. I will share a number of stories. While these stories are inspired by real people, I have changed some of the character descriptions out of respect for these people. The essence of each story and its related messages are what is important. I see myself in the examples I will share, and I admit I must constantly shed the masks I have created over the years.

I hope that we can discover who we as women are meant to be and that we will like what we see.

PART 1

Expose

Chapter 1

The Gap

Recently, as part of our summer vacation, we went to London to visit my daughter, who was doing student teaching in the British school system. We caught up with her as she finished, and we spent an extra week doing the traditional tourist things like riding the Underground and visiting Buckingham Palace.

While navigating the Underground system, we saw the phrase Mind the Gap at every subway stop. This was meant to call attention to the gap between the platform and the train. What a great phrase! I now use it as a rallying cry to make sure I am aware of the gap between where I find myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually and where God wants me.

So where does God want me? I will get deeper into that question in part 3 of the book, but suffice it to say that the answer begins with prayer. For now, let’s mind the gap.

It would be great if at every turning point or important decision in life there were warning signs telling us to mind the gap. But that’s not how it works. The gaps usually become apparent only when we look back on important decisions or moves already made.

Early in life, women yearn to be part of