He is RISEN

Matthew 7:6 "Do not give dogs what is scared; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."

Lately,  my quandaries have been centered around my identity, or lack thereof. I've always felt such a lack of solidity when it came to addressing my identity... And I'm using identity as an umbrella term... My overall, general, innermost self-hood has always been so malleable, and I didn't realize I had a problem with that until just recently. For example, my standpoints on anything are never one way. I scarcely get into arguments because I never really have a passionate one-sided outlook on things. I'm not even sure if I have a favorite color. Optimistically, I can say that makes me open minded, but my pessimist self just tells me that I don't have a firm knowledge of who I am or what I believe. That is until recently...
I've always found it extremely difficult to open myself up to strangers. I tend to see myself as a burden on another's life and bottle things up to myself to avoid adding onto their load. I bite my tongue in a lot of situations to appease another person, and because I wouldn't even know how to stand up for myself in the first place. How could I, when I wasn't even aware of my own identity?
But God gave me my moment of clarity. I recently faced a situation where I either needed to stand firm in my beliefs in God, or once again compromise my self-hood and perpetuate this continual self deprecation on my lack of identity, which is detrimental to my relationship with God. Sick of my teetering faith, I made the leap and stood firm in my faith, even if that meant upsetting the other person, and in that moment I realized it. That is my identity. My faith, and my beliefs in the Lord make me who I am. He gives me love, hope and strength, and also identity... And every time I stay firm in Him, my identity becomes a little more solidified. Every time I say no to sin, and yes to Jesus, I learn more about who I am, and who I was made to be. We just need to have the courage to say Yes more. It can be scary, but the outcome is so worth it. He's worth our yeses, isn't he? Everything we could possibly need and more is in the Lord...
For so long I've been throwing my pearls to pigs. Teetering rather than standing firm in my faith... And all that has done to me is leave me feeling empty and rootless. When you give the dogs what is sacred, you lose a piece of yourself and that perpetuates this unhealthy need to find a brief, impermanent fix to fill that void. God is not holding a whip ready to lash at you at every mistake you make. He sees your slop, and is waiting with a clean robe for your back, rings for your fingers, and sandals for your weary feet. This is the God I'm saying yes to. The God who gives me identity.