TRUE IDENTITY

Gloria Phifer

Last week, when I was reading a book on "identity,"  I had a wonderful experience with The Lord.

The identity had to do with "fathers" and it has not been a pleasant subject or thought of mine...sometimes it was too painful and I didn't want to go there. ( I will say that The Lord has been bringing me back to this for years.)

That morning, I was remembering, when I was young, how people would tell me I looked like my "daddy". I thought he was my real biological father. we both had dark hair and hazel eyes. When I was ten my mother told me he wasn't my real dad.

My biological father lived in California. they had divorced when I was three. My mother told me I looked like him. And that he didn't care anything about me or he wouldn't have given up custody of me.

Yes, at 10 years old, you can have an identity crises. I couldn't look like the man I had called "daddy" because he wasn't my real dad. (also a few months later, still as a ten year old, trying to understand everything, the man I had called "Daddy", died.)

But, I looked like a man I could not remember seeing? and my mother told me I had his characteristics also? And that I reminded her of him?

As I was thinking about this...last week...The Lord said very plainly in my heart..."You look like your Papa God!!!" 

It was so real...so profound. It kept coming as if it was sinking deeply into me...I look like my Papa God. Tears came into my eyes and I began wiping them away. 

It is hard to explain what it is like when God makes something so real to your heart. As if the scales are falling off your eyes and your heart. A  revelation, that you know is true. It is really miraculous...I don't know how else to explain it. It is if He reaches down, pulls back a curtain, speaks and you know it is The Truth. 

I know...I look like my Father God...my Papa God....I am His child. I have His characteristics. He wanted me. He planned my birth. He had a plan for my life. I belong to Him...He is my Papa God.

I can't began to tell you what an impact that truth has made in me. I am no longer that little girl who didn't know who she was or where she belonged, or even if she was wanted? 

I have a Papa God...and I look like Him!!!

What a profound truth!!! He created me. He planned me. He saved me. He lives inside me, through His Holy spirit. I am a new creation in Christ Jesus. Wow!!! I look like my Papa God!!! That is my identity. That is my eternity...with Him.

IDENTITY IN CHRIST

Gloria Phifer

Identity has become a big issue in our country. Everywhere we go, if we go to the doctor, travel etc., we must prove our identity.

I had an identity crises in my life. At the age of ten, I was told about my real father, Warren Kenneth Bolding. I found out that my mom and father had divorced when I was 3. My mom told me my real father didn’t care about me, or he wouldn’t have given up custody of me. I was also told, I had a sister from his first marriage. It was a lot to take in as a ten year old. I thought my stepdad was my father…now I found out he wasn’t. Now I knew my brother and I had different fathers. (my step dad died 3 months later in a accident at his work.)

I decided that someday I would find my real father. What bothered me the most, was that I was told he didn’t care about me.

The summer, before I married my husband, (I was 19 yrs. old.) we found out that Warren Kenneth had died of a massive heart attack.  I was so sad. I would never meet him.

In my 40’s, I was thinking about my sister, I had never met. My mother sent me a letter, saying she had been in contact with someone who knew her. My mother gave me the information of where my sister worked. I wrote a letter, not knowing if she even knew about me. A week later I received a phone call from my sister. She said, “Gloria, I have been looking for you for 21 years.”

I had married and moved to Iowa. She was in New Mexico. I visited her.

The only thing we had in common was a father that neither of us knew. My sister knew our grandfather (who had also passed away.) She gave my father's  first cousin, who lived in Texas, my address.  She sent me a lot of information on the Bolding family. But, not much detail about Warren Kenneth.

Years later, when our son moved to California, I visited him. He drove me to San Diego and I found my father’s grave. We had his old address, but the freeway had taken that area.

A few weeks later, after I flew back to Iowa, my husband and I drove our son’s pickup to California.

We stopped in Phoenix. I had made contact with Warren Kenneth’s nephew and his wife. We spent the evening with them. Once again, I was disappointed. The nephew didn’t know him well. My father remained a mystery man.

That night, after we returned to the motel, I went to the pool. I was there alone. Once again I had this sadness. An emptiness. 

“Identity” kept coming into my mind. I listened and The Lord spoke to my heart, “Your identity is in Me.” (I hadn’t realized I was looking for identity.)

The Lord really began a new process in me. He had given me identity. My identity IS IN HIM. HE IS MY FATHER.

He wanted me. He ordained my life. I was chosen by Him before the foundation of the world. (Ephesians 1). He would never abandon me...never leave me nor forsake me.

 The Lord replaced that search for : “learning who I am In Christ Jesus.” True identity, as a Child of My Father Who is in Heaven and The King of Kings and Lord of Lords.    His Holy Spirit lives within me.
I belong.