aleks peterson | author

We miss a lot of opportunities. Career opportunities. Investment opportunities. Opportunities to renew our car’s extended warranty. Opportunities to help those in need. But one of the biggest opportunities we miss is the chance to evaluate our identity in the wake of adversity. C.S. Lewis suggested that pain is often a bi-product of God as the divine Artist shaping and molding us into an artifact that more closely resembles himself, as a painter might “rub and scrape and recommence” a painting over and over until it reaches perfection. It’s unpleasant, but not cosmically unpleasant. It’s unappreciated, but ultimately part of a process founded in love. And most importantly, it means something about who we are and why we were created.

And yet, Christians are infamous for inventing tidy little truisms and micro-narratives about the Divine Will during difficult times. “Everything happens for a reason,” we say. This is probably the most general and therefore the safest among them. But we also say things like:

“It just wasn’t meant to be.”

“God has something even better in store.”

“God was calling me to a different path.”

“The Lord isn’t done with me yet!”

This last one I find particularly troubling because of its threatening tone, as if the pain we have recently experienced was only the beginning of a long, slow carnival ride of torture and confusion we must endure to become good enough for the One who made us. 

But this is what we do. Instead of suffering through the worst of our existential pain with true depth of feeling, we rationalize it away using rudimentary fatalistic logic. Imagine if a student faced with an advanced calculus proof should respond, “Well, numbers always add up to something, because math.” Lately, I’ve wondered if God doesn’t look down from heaven and scratch his head at how spectacularly deaf and blind we are. If we want to live a meaningful life (which we all certainly do), we must be smarter. We must think harder. We must believe our own circumstances deserve more than a cursory analysis and a quick recovery, especially when those circumstances are bleak. Especially when they indicate we had it all wrong.

If your vehicle is involved in an accident, you don’t hop back into it and continue driving as if nothing occurred. You don’t rationalize the damage away by saying oh well, these things happen to cars. You take stock almost immediately. You drive the vehicle to an authorized repair facility where trained professionals evaluate what repairs are required to restore your car’s cosmetic appearance and functionality and safety. You might even consider purchasing a new vehicle entirely, because you care about the vessel that carries your body to and fro, and you don’t want the wheels to fall off at the next traffic light. How much more concern should we show for the living vessel that carries our soul through life? How much more should we question and evaluate our own identity when the universe throws a curveball, when we feel the pain of the divine artist pressing into the supple clay of our being. Do you still know who you are? Have you stopped to consider the question at all? 

When we hear the phrase identity crisis, we often imagine a confused adolescent wrestling with basic questions about their social, moral, and professional trajectory while picking up and putting down different hobbies, trying out various friend groups, and changing majors in college. The perception of identity crisis as a youth-oriented issue is common, perpetuated in mainstream psychological literature and likely stemming from Erik Erikson’s pioneering work on psychosocial theory. The idea is that we spend our teenage years flip-flopping about who we are and what our purpose is in society, but generally resolve these questions by our early to mid twenties. At this point, we have developed a stable adult identity. But this is quite an oversimplified understanding of Erikson’s theory. In Identity: Youth and Crisis, he actually portrays identity formation as a life-long process with eight, bipolar stages. At each stage, he suggests, a person has an opportunity to fluctuate between syntonic (positive) or dystonic (negative) outcomes based on a present conflict, and the stages build on one another. In old age, for example, there is a choice between “integrity and despair.” As young adults, we choose between “intimacy and isolation,” as middle-agers, “generativity vs. stagnation,” and so on (I encourage you to look it up and read through all eight stages). Although our identities do seem to stabilize in early adulthood, they are never fully cemented, and there is always a possibility of swinging toward one extreme or another. A child’s skull plates may fuse and harden at age two, but that doesn’t make them invincible to head injury at age 40. A fully constructed home with a concrete foundation can still be ravaged by a storm. We are like this, too. All it takes is a huff and a puff from the wolf named Chaos, and the entire framework we’ve constructed around ourselves can be blown to bits. Maybe that’s normal. 

No doubt you might be thinking, why wait for conflict and calamity? Why not ask and answer our identity questions during times of good and plenty, when our heads can be clear and our temperaments unpressured. That sounds like a lovely idea. Maybe sit at a cafe and peer out at the city streets over a steaming mug, listen to the birds chirp and the traffic hum. Take a deep breath. Wait for a vision. Maybe jot down notes—a neat outline with key points and questions. Weigh the evidence. Crunch the numbers. And then, Aha! If only truth were so accessible. If only Scrooge’s ghosts could have contacted him via friendly telegram in broad daylight. If only Horatio Spafford could have penned his greatest lyrics without losing his fortune in the Great Chicago Fire and his son to scarlet fever and his four daughters in a shipwreck. We all know the story of the 1873 hymn, “It is Well.” We are diamonds emerging from immense heat and pressure, you see. Gold in the refiner’s fire, melting and pouring out of ourselves and forming entirely new shapes. It is painful, yes, but it’s our nature. Rather than a subtracting force, these calamities and this pain are what make us who we are.

So not only will we fail to grasp our true identity without suffering, but suffering is the perfect time to stop and evaluate our identity. When the gale passes and a sickly sun peeks through the retracting clouds and you emerge from hiding to examine the wreckage cast around you in every direction, you suddenly remember exactly what matters most to you in the entire world. Maybe it’s one thing. Maybe two. This is arguably the time of greatest clarity in a person’s life. The wind and the earthquake and the fire have subsided, and if you listen closely, you just might hear the still, small voice that follows. It can happen at 65 just as easily as 19, or at any point in between. And it will happen. Maybe it has happened to you already, or is happening now. Maybe that’s why you picked up this book to begin with. Don’t miss the opportunity.