My Not-So-Secret Identity

After running into an old friend from high school this evening, I've realized what a different person I've become in four short years. I'm not sharing this for my own glorification. Any positive change that has taken place in this small life can only be attributed to my Savior and His work in my heart. I think it took me a long time to discover "the meaning of life" as well as how to live with that purpose in mind, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I'll never forget the inexplicable depression I felt each morning as I trudged up the stairs and made my way to my first period English class, even though it feels like another lifetime. Sometimes I'd lay my head on my desk and let a few tears slip for no reason at all. I drew strange doodles and wrote depressing poems to alleviate my pain. It all seems so silly now, but still so real.

The worst time of all was my choir's annual Coast Trip. Ordinarily, it was something that I looked forward to all school year. My senior year was different. I dreaded it completely. I had two or three friends in particular who always had a knack for dressing and acting the right way to get every guy's attention. Me? Not so much. They offered to fix my hair and do my makeup. I always felt like it was out of pity. I had very short, unbecoming hair, I dressed mostly in black, and I was a tad chubby. My worst fears were confirmed one night as three of us were boarding together for the evening. My friends were discussing different kissing methods. Before that, I hadn't even realized that there might be more than one way to do it. As I was beginning to doze off, I heard one of them say,"Poor Kim. She doesn't even know what it's like to be kissed." That hurt, at the time. In hindsight, the whole thing is pretty laughable considering the fact that neither of them married the boyfriends that they were discussing. Right then, it didn't matter. I only knew that I was completely undesirable and that my friends literally felt sorry for me.

A little over a year later, I spent the greatest summer of my life in a very different place. I began to read the bible for myself-- not just to read it, but to hunger for it. It was exciting, epic even! I also read a book by John Piper (Don't Waste Your Life) that opened my eyes for the first time as to what my purpose for living might be. All the time I had been struggling with my lack of identity. I longed for something, some unknown part of me to be discovered, to make me beautiful. I wanted to feel that sense of being important and irreplaceable to someone. I was just beginning to catch the first glimpses of that in Christ, as I revealed in a song I wrote at that summer camp, a song I simply named, "Satisfy"

I lift my heart, I raise these hands
To worship You, to worship only You
There's nothing else 'cause no other love
Compares to the one you poured out on us

Only You, only You, Jesus
Only You can satisfy
Only You, only You, Jesus
Only You can satisfy

So take my heart and take these hands
I'll worship You, I'll worship only You
There's nothing else 'cause no other love
Compares to the One you gave on the cross

It was simple and to the point. Even so, I had (and still have) a lot to learn. Fast forward a year, and I've just ended the worst relationship I could have imagined. The "boyfriend" I thought might soothe the lack of love I felt cheated on me, and I felt more worthless and hopeless than I could have ever imagined. I had never realized why girls cried when they broke up with guys. I always rolled my eyes and thought, "Get over it." Time passed, yet the whole ugliness of it wouldn't go away. Not for a long while, anyway. Slowly, gradually, I began to get it. I began to surrender. Over a year later, my prayer became, "Not my will, but Yours be done."

When I prayed that prayer in a new place, both literally and figuratively, I never imagined that I'd be engaged  to the most wonderful young man I'd ever met a year and a half later. I never imagined that God had something good and beautiful in store. He had a plan for wholeness. You see, I had literally given up to the point of deciding to become a missionary and remain single, not because I felt undesirable, but because I didn't want those things anymore. The "love" I had received was superficial, weak, and conditional. I knew that God's love wasn't any of those things.

When I see myself now, I'll be the first to admit that I'm far, very far from perfect. I'm a broken human being, just like the rest, yet God has done something miraculous. He took away the confusion. My identity, the one I searched so hard for and never really found, had to die. I'm no longer Kimberly Cordell. I'm a daughter of the Most High God! He loves me, and He knew I'd be satisfied only when His purpose for my life became something I understood, longed for, and fought for. I was born to proclaim His greatness! In doing so, He gave me a new mind, new desires, and a new self. I'm not my own, because He died for me. My life has been hidden with Jesus.

Colossians 3:3
For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

Galatians 2:20
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.