Who Are You?
- TeKenya Johnson
- Nov 25, 2017
- 6 min read
“Knowing who you are matters because someone
is always watching you and waiting on you to show up” -TeKenya J.
Ask people who they are and they immediately begin to tell you everything that they have accomplished in life; jobs, careers, degrees, titles and the company they work for or own. They give you all their accolades and stick their chest out to say, "I’ve arrived!" Many of them never stop to think about the question, “Who are you?” Instead, they list everything that they do. Some people have died, never knowing who they really were because they never dug deep inside to find out. Join me as I take a walk down memory lane and then think about your life today. Do you know who you are and what you stand for? Do you know where you are going and why it is important to you? When did things start to make sense for you? Where did you begin to recognize and witness that you had a purpose in life, dreams and goals to achieve, and something to offer and help the world? When trying to find the answer to that question, I began to look outside of my recent marriage, motherhood, friendships and my career. I had to strip away every title that I had and all the things that I had accomplished along the way, wash the MAC make up off my face, take the red bottom shoes off, and put down the Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and designer bags. I had to take off the wigs, weaves, and fake finger nails and then look in the mirror, naked, and ask myself, “Who are you”? That's were I found my story and I want to share it with you.
I couldn’t understand why a lot of things had happened in my life while growing up. My biological mother and father didn’t raise me. I can remember being told by a teacher that I was an orphan Annie since my Aunt and Uncle were my caretakers. She said, “You will always have issues with knowing who you are.” She also said, “You will never really get to know who you are.” Children are like sponges, they soak up everything around them. Every time I saw or heard the word orphan I said to myself, "that’s what I am," because she spoke that foolishness over my life as a child. But that wasn't all. I had been spat on once by someone who I thought loved me. They spit in my face and told me that I was nothing. I’ve even been mentally abused. They say, “hurt people, hurt people." So now I have all this stuff in my bag, dragging it along throughout life growing up. Thus, the creation of my baggage.
Baggage
All of us have issues you know. Trying to figure it all out at once and it had my mind cluttered all the time. I became frustrated, sad and mad. Every time I couldn’t sustain a friendship, relationship, loss jobs, business deals I would throw it all in this bag. Everyone I met and connected to, a piece of them went in that bag. I felt rejected, like God didn’t love me. I can remember crying out to God and asking, "Why must I go through so much? Why did this happen to me?" I wanted him to reveal it all to me at once. But how many of you know that that’s not how God works? I mean, I wanted it just like that to be over with instantly; to get me out of those spider webs I in which I was entangled. I am human just like everyone else and I needed and wanted answers right away. But, I had to go through a process and processes aren’t always pretty.
The Process
The process was a series of actions and steps that I had to take to achieve the end result I wanted. God revealed things to me little by little. He was building my faith and I learned that faith is the substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen. I didn’t see it right away but it came to me eventually. He was building my trust. I had to spend time with him and get to know who He was and is. Realizing that all those in my past past broke me, it took time, prayer, faith and work to pull those things out of my bag and discover who I really was. I had to have faith that God was going to bring me out. In the process, I learned to face and deal with my oppositions, hurts and pains, and disappointments. I had to learn and have faith that I had two options for dealing with what was in my bag. I could either keep contaminating and consuming my mind with negative thoughts, or I could get some medicine to cure my infections of hatred and bitterness of rejection issues; to let it become the strength I needed to motivate and transform me into a better person.
In order to find out who I was, and who we are, we must go back to the one who created us and that’s God. Created in his image, God is the creator of the heavens and the earth, created the universe, and is powerful and mighty. He is wisdom, infinitude, sovereignty, holiness, trinity, faithfulness, self-sufficiency, self-existence, goodness, mercy, and justice. And if we are created in his image, then we must have some of his features, qualities, characteristics and attributes. We look like God and resemble Him. The enemy knows how powerful we are and that we were created by God to be great creative people. The enemy comes to kill, steal, and to destroy anything that is powerful, mighty, and on it’s way to greatness. The enemy is after your mind and your visions so that your eye sight will be burled. He wants to control your thinking, so you can be up all night worrying and stressed out. The enemy is cunning, a manipulator who will put doubt in your mind.
Just like the story of Adam and Eve in the garden. God had already given them dominion over the earth and told them that they could have everything except for the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil (the forbidden fruit). For many of us, the enemy comes along to put doubt in our minds by using the word “really.” Did God really say, "Don’t eat from that tree!" The problem is that the enemy is always trying to sell us on things that God has already given us. God has given us power to control our thinking and the things around us. All we must to do is remember who we are and that we are made in the image of God. The enemy used my issues and my past, just like he does with many of us today, to put blinders over my eyes, occupying my mind and diluting my thoughts. My mind became his playground and he put me on the merry-go-rounds and spun me until I was dizzy. I didn't realize that, once I found my power, there isn’t a devil in hell that can stop me.
Perspective
People who are not thirsty don’t need water to drink. My faith soon gave me perspective on how I needed to look at my past hurts and situations and I recognized the gift God gave me. God doesn’t always show what you are going to go through in life, and having faith doesn’t mean you won’t have trouble either. It is your adversities that creates the dream and causes you to have faith. It was my barrenness and brokenness that caused me to want help; to dream and long for it. My prayers were born out of the pain I was going through and I realized that I needed to get better to serve my gift well. Our troubles make us call out to God. Trouble will make you have faith especially if you want to get out of it bad enough. So, I changed my systems to change my circumstances.
What we believe, we become so change your belief and expect the best in everything that you do. Desire to change in your attitude and beliefs must be deep and embedded. Do visualization exercises every morning and throughout each day. Do the exercises with Deservability Affirmations because it helps to build your confidence level up. When you know who you are, you learn that a spouse, a child or children, jobs, careers, degrees and titles are an addition. So, who are you? My message is very clear. Someone is waiting on you to show up and to promote what God has done, and is doing, in your life. Tell the world who you are and share your stories. Take pride in having some integrity in knowing whose you are. Because, even if you are the only person in a room, God is still watching you.
TeKenya Johnson is a Christian author, motivational speaker, mentor, and marriage coach. She and her husband run the "My Marriage Is My Brand" ministry and can be found here. Stay tuned to see more of her writing and to learn about her upcoming book release slated for 2018.
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