I've been thinking a lot lately about to what extent we are the product of our circumstances. Is biography and identity the same thing? How we tell our story is central to how we see ourselves. If we tell our story as one of circumstance, one of events that have happened, things that have been done to us then are we presenting ourselves as a product of our past? If, instead, we tell our story as the people that have shaped us, the places we've seen, the joys and the sadness we've experienced, we perhaps begin to express our identity.
But that's not the full story. I am not, as Orange would have me believe, the sum of my relationships. I am not my family, my Scottish upbringing. I am not my education, my travels. I am not my faith, my beliefs. There lies a place, deep within me that is my identity. It is hard to express and harder to explain. Our creator knows who I am and He knows why I am. I am made in God's image and I must rest-assured that that is good. It is very good indeed.
If identity was the same as biography then where is the hope of a new tomorrow? There has to be that hope. The hope to someday, somehow escape the confines of your childhood and be free to be you.
