Who Am I, Really?

Finding Identity in Faith Beyond Roles and Expectations

There was a time when my days were increasingly overtaken by illness, and I found myself asking questions I had spent years avoiding: What is the meaning of my life? What will I be remembered for? Who am I—really?

Those questions didn’t come out of nowhere. I had struggled with identity for as long as I can remember. I’d tried on more personas, lifestyles, and versions of myself than I could count. In many ways, I had lived several lives in one. Some of those experiences shaped me in ways I wouldn’t trade; others came with choices I wish I had made differently. I had failed more than I cared to admit—but I had also grown more than I ever expected.

Even then, as cancer threatened to become my life, I knew I didn’t want it to become my identity.

For most of my life, I tried to fit myself into a box of what I thought I should be. If I met someone I liked or admired, I would try on a new lifestyle. I had been a student, a nerd, a soldier, a blue-collar girl, a housewife, a competitor—and at times, I played at being a cowgirl. I worked in construction, worked with a farrier, trained horses, performed at a dinner theater, waited tables, and cleaned houses. I studied animal science, aviation, meteorology, engineering, history, and pre-med. I even flew a helicopter.

I worried more about pleasing others than pleasing God, or myself. When I dared to dream about what I really wanted to do, I didn’t trust God to give me the strength to meet the challenge. I believed I didn’t have the ability to do it on my own—and I was right! What I hadn’t yet learned was how to turn my dreams over to God and rely on Him instead of myself.

I have always been an eccentric blend of chaos and order, but for much of my life I swung too far between the two, usually hiding the chaos. Over time, I’ve come to see that the balance of the two is ideal, allowing stability and creativity.

I never fit neatly into molds or groups, though I longed to. By all outward appearances, I seemed pretty conventional—except to the people who knew me well—but fitting in was always the goal. The real me despised conventionality and ordinariness (if that is even a word). Life seemed determined to make sure I never did fit in—through infertility, my discomfort with work that required me to be someone I wasn’t, and my natural introversion.

It took years of contorting myself and complicating my life to learn who I really was—and to appreciate it.

So who am I, really?

I am someone who likes to think. A lot. I love beauty—in nature, our garden, animals, stones, and quality workmanship. I love music for its intricacy and its ability to inspire. I love to create—to make something that wasn’t there before. I value doing my best in everything I do, even if it is cleaning the toilet. God is watching, even when nobody else is. And when no one else is looking, I know it when I take shortcuts—and I don’t like it.

I like solving problems, learning, and arguing—but not about petty things. I like to share wisdom, if I can find it. I like to serve others in ways that are true to myself and genuinely needed. I value kindness, politeness, and humility. I respect intelligence, though I have probably cared too much about it. I value truth.

For the most part, I have always been an open book. I’ve also learned—sometimes the hard way—that openness comes with risk. There were seasons when I hid parts of myself, and those were the times I respected myself the least.

For too long, I let myself be defined by others and by my mistakes. I no longer want my identity rooted in roles or relationships. I don’t want to say that I am a wife, a daughter, or a sister first. I am Heidi Elise.

Heidi means noble one. Elise means consecrated to God. I love that, because I want my truest identity to be a daughter of God—one who lives primarily in relationship with Him and for His glory. I have a long way to go, but each day I am learning to trust Him with my future. I am learning to appreciate how He created me, with all my idiosyncrasies and gifts.

I know now that I will never please everyone. I choose instead to live a life that pleases Him. My identity is not found in what I do for a living, but in who I am becoming. As I look back on a complicated life—one that might have been simpler had I known God sooner—I am learning, slowly and imperfectly, to live in constant relationship with my Father.