It was the morning when he woke up and realized that he did not know the woman whom he slept next to anymore, that it was time for a change. He gently tapped on her shoulder and as she roused from her sheepish demure, he said, “Honey, I don’t know who you are, anymore.” Her heart sank, but there was truth to his words. She replied, “I don’t know who I am, anymore, either.” They exchanged a long, wistful gaze—but they found no semblance of the people with whom they fell in love years ago.
After 10 years, the endless, eclectic sprawl of ups and downs throughout their relationship seemed to fade away, as they became total strangers, sitting in silence, doubting the longevity of their marriage. Once upon a time, they could finish each other’s sentences for hours. Now, even simple conversation felt stale. The answer for all of this was simple: one of them had lost their identity.
The moral to be learned in this story is that you should never lose your identity in a relationship. If you lose sight of yourself, you run the risk of losing someone else. All too often, we are told to find someone who completes us. This message is peddled non-stop in popular culture. But, the truth is, God created you in his image, perfect and complete, separately as male and female (Genesis 1:26–27, 31).
God introduced the partnership when He saw that man alone would not be as fruitful than when he had woman by his side to be his helper. “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” (Genesis 2:18)
And while the word says that “… a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24), it does not infer that couples ought to lose their identity, or that one person ought to relinquish their power to the other. Rather, the very essence of the statement is emphasised for the couple to move together as a unit, thereby creating the partnership to help each other grow.
Finding someone to complete you means that your relationship will never be complete. Instead, find someone who complements you. You are already complete on your own. Finding someone to complement you will help the both of you work together and grow. Ecclesiastes 4:9–10 says, “Two people are better off than one, for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble.”
Searching for someone to complete you gives them power that is not theirs. They did not create you. God already completes you, and that Power is His and His, alone. Yielding power to someone else makes them your puppet-master. They will control your emotions, and heaven forbid, if they leave you, they will leave you feeling fractured. Your identity should be found in God, who created you in His image. Accordingly, your identity should be in the following order:
- First and foremost, you are a son/daughter of the Most God; and then
- You are a husband/wife; and then
- You are a father/mother; and then
- You can become everything else.
If you place your identity in God, you will always find peace in the midst of any storm. Jesus emphasises this sentiment in John 15:5, where He says, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me, and I, in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” Through Jesus, you will always know your role in any relationship, and have the patience and grace to build a foundation that will never wither within any storm. We are but broken people that cannot complete ourselves, and therefore can never complete another. With our flaws, we complement each other, and that is the foundation by which God has graced us.
©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2017.
