You look at yourself in the mirror. You see the growth, the strength, and the beauty, but there is something else there as well. You see all of your past mistakes and struggles. You know you are more than that, but you can't get rid of how big they seem to show in your life. You continue to look at yourself and wonder, "Who am I?"

It is so easy to look in the mirror and think back to every wrong move you have ever made. You wish you could go back and tell your younger self to run away. You realize that the struggles have made you stronger *insert some Kelly Clarkson Stronger *. Yet, you wish you could have gotten stronger in a different way because you have to live with that stain on your life for the rest of your life. No matter how much you grow or how far you have gotten from it, it will always be with you.

Now here is where the struggle starts. I can start with my cliche helpful advice that should inspire you to change. However, that is not what you want... or I am assuming because I am not talking to you face-to-face. I know that I personally cannot stand the advice as though this person gets what is going on. As though they have lived through every misstep, heartbreak, and broken moment. You weren't with me when I fought to push forward. You weren't with me when I made mistake after mistake and watched everything fall apart.

So, I am not going to give you advice. Instead I am going to bring you into my life and maybe you'll get something out of it or feel like you can talk to somebody about it.

You see, that illustration is me. I look at myself and I do see a girl that has come a long way from the brokenness of high school. I am no longer faking it that I have it together because NOBODY really has it together. However, I still see the girl that never was enough. The girl that tried too hard because she felt alone. I see the girl that struggled to see any point in life because it had made itself look so good to others on the outside, but on the inside it was dark and broken. I see a girl that has brought that past with her everywhere she goes because it is now woven into who she is.

At times I try to push that part of me away. I try to pretend she is not looking back at me, but I started to realize something. That part of me will always be a part of me. However, she is not who I am. You see my identity is not wrapped in that broken girl who couldn't get anything right and felt alone. Instead it is somebody who is everything that I am not and loves me far more than I will ever know.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Galatians 2:20

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Colossians 3:1-4

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10

When I start believing in the identity that the Lord has given me and not the one that I have, then I can look past the brokeness of myself, but to the wholeness through the Lord.