Before What They Made of You

“Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee.”

Jeremiah 1:5

Plenty of people have already told you who you are — or worse, who you'll never be capable of becoming. A childhood nickname that stuck all the way to today, an unfair comparison made when you were still a child, a label others stuck on you before they even truly knew you, from the inside.

But I knew you before any human mouth ever opened to try to define you. I formed you with an identity that doesn't depend on anyone's opinion around you — not even your own harsh opinion on the bad days. Before any mistake you would one day come to make, I already had a beautiful purpose designed specifically for you.

Starting over in identity is exactly this: no longer answering to the nicknames people pinned on you over the years, and starting to answer to the name I myself gave you — beloved, chosen, capable, enough. You are not what they made of you. You are what I said, with full authority, that you are.