Reflect Your Identity In Christ

By Michele Vigelance

Privileged To IDENTIFY FORGIVEN

Michele’s story is a powerful insight into a spiritual truth that every person should discover: Our human identity is found and blossoms in the sacrifice Jesus Christ made and the freeing grace of God. Once we identify the forgiveness we receive in our life then we can recognize that we are privileged to be equally forgiving to others.

Today, when I look in the mirror I see the promise Christ has written all over me. I reflect my true identity in Him.

For me, the lies were always easier to believe. I was a plain child with a flat nose and of all things, a prosthetic eye. Constantly mistaken for a boy, I walked with my gaze firmly fixed on the ground during early childhood. Struggling with my prosthesis and a hyper-sensitive socket was a perpetual preoccupation – I was consumed.

Every morning it was a mucousy mess that my patient father would clean. At night, I grieved the normalcy lost when, at 10-months of age, my right eye was removed in search of a tumor that turned out never to have been there. Although all I had lost was my physical ability to see in one eye, my inability to see myself through the lens of hope, beautiful, unmarred, and capable was far more costly.

‘I’ IS FOR IRRITATION, INFLAMMATION, INFECTION AND “I LOOK DIFFERENT”

For reasons we’ll never know, the socket that was left behind after the removal of my eye was always overly mucousy, prone to irritation, inflammation, and infection. For decades I would privately remove the prosthesis several times daily to drain and clean it. The irritation often required antiseptic ointment to calm it down. Even having the prosthesis professionally cleaned has triggered what seems like a full-blown infection. When the time comes for a new prosthesis to be made every several years, it has taken at least a month for the socket to adjust because of the relentless swelling, tearing, and even allergy symptoms. (It’s literally as if my body is rejecting a new organ.) This process of getting a new prosthesis is itself a new trauma, which makes it painful to look at myself. Wearing whatever makeup I can work with, I have always returned to work as quickly as possible. The stress of being around people, combined with the relentless and senseless pre-occupation that I look different (in a bad way) is exhausting. During these times, the prayers and support of my parents, my brother, and my closest friends have sustained me.

Academic life complicated things further, with reading being an enduring hardship. Reading aloud induced a faltering stammer. My parents had me practicing endlessly, signing me up for at least one reading competition (where I medaled) to help me overcome this undiagnosed, yet crippling fear that jumbled written words in my head.

STUCK IN MY HEAD – CONSUMED BY FEAR AND INADEQUACY

I was spared bullying for the most part, but a gnawing anxiety and sense of inadequacy handily made up for that. The insecurity continued through two failed attempts to pass the Virginia Bar and into my legal career, despite my coming to Christ along the way. At my home church, I learned scripture, God’s character and prayer. Later, having relocated out-of-state for work, I met more Christians who were sharpened by an obedient sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Many of them knew God’s written word and could also connect prophetically with His heart towards those around them.

Being around them, I started to see God’s assessment of me. I realized it differed vastly from mine.

8 WAYS CHRISTIANS CAN BE SPIRITUALLY SENSITIVE

Practice prayer that focuses less on time spent or the number of verses read, and more on giving God greater access to the recesses of the heart. (Ways to do this include meditating on the Bible, praying in the Spirit, journaling, being still in His presence (soaking).
Worship at home (don’t wait to go to church to worship).
Worship when you get to church (don’t be a spectator – whether or not you like the song or the worship leader).
Worship through every day activities (“worship” has very little to do with music and a lot to do with BEING in God’s spirit).
Think of the entire day as a prayer closet. Our devotional time doesn’t have to end. We may not always manage this, but even in the busyness of life, it is possible for us to pray without ceasing.
Practice obedience. Surrender mindsets and attitudes that might feel justified, but that hinder our sensitivity to His voice (e.g. resentment, unforgiveness of ourselves and others, disappointment, self-pity).
Fast (yes, of food). Put yourself on a fast track to tuning in with God.
Resist the tendency to cloister yourself with people who think exactly like you.

At first, I waited for God to magically free me from my negativity. But I eventually realized that this was a cop out – He was waiting on me! Provision in this area had already been made through His Son. By overcoming death, He had overcome my countless fears, and then handed me the power to overcome them and my limiting beliefs.

A grueling two-year professional placement brought a tipping point. This pressure-filled workplace stretched me. My colleagues seemed to be everything I wasn’t. They were smart, successful, confident, seemingly impenetrable to hardship, and, of course, beautiful. Ironically, they respected me in a similar way, because I worked hard and executed fairly well in this new place, while staying in phenomenal shape. Besides worship, my workouts were a precious outlet for me, and it showed.

Pictured above: Today, Michele Vigelance serves her community in Miami, Florida as a lawyer.

GOD’S GOOD FORTUNE – IT’S IN THE CARDS

Nevertheless, my outlook remained a toxic ecosystem that gave life to all the wrong things. While praying, God’s Holy Spirit challenged me to list the lies at the root of the negative narrative that plagued me and then search for scriptures that contradicted each one. This was a task. The most impactful verses I found resonated deeply. Still I eyed these verses with a doubt that almost overpowered the faltering hope they stirred within me. Like a starved orphan, seated for the first time at the dinner table of a loving, adoptive family, it was hard for me to believe that these words of life were for me. They contradicted the story I had accepted for myself so thoroughly that my only confidence was that they were too good to be true.

Eventually each lie was written on one side of an index card with at least one verse on the other. These cards were God’s word addressed to me. To this day, as I meditate on them, the Holy Spirit continues to renew my mind, teaching me to rest in Him as He strengthens me to be confident in whom He has created me to be. The more I surrender, the more I see that the Lord still comes to overwhelm the thing that had been sent to overwhelm me.

SEE THE HOPE INSTEAD OF THE LIE

Here are some of the lies and Bible verses I wrote on the cards. You can do the same.

I am isolated or abandoned: For I will be leaning towards you with favor and regard for you, rendering you fruitful, multiplying you, and establishing and ratifying My covenant with you. And you shall eat the abundant old store of produce long kept, and clear out the old to make room for the new. Levit. 25:9-10 AMP

I am a failure: God’s favor surrounds me like a shield. Psalm 5:12

I can’t win; I am overwhelmed: “Do not be afraid, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” II Kings 6:16

I am void of resources (2 verses): I shall not lack. Psalm 23:1

Blessed, fortunate, prosperous and favored is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandment….prosperity and welfare are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. Light arises in the darkness for the upright, gracious, compassionate, and just who are in right standing with God. Psalm 112:1-4 AMP

I am terrified: I sought the Lord and He answered me, He delivered me from all my fears. Psalm 34:4

CONSUMED BY A MINDSET REVOLUTION

With a mindset revolution underway, the Holy Spirit gently began to challenge my fiercely-defended victim mentality and body dysmorphia. Drawing closer to Him meant setting time aside daily to imprint a word from His heart onto mine, and then lean into it throughout the day, and every day. The work continues.

Many people, Christians included, fail to walk in a redeemed and God-empowered identity because we can’t envision overcoming anything during life on earth. This is partly because false humility and self-pity are seldom identified and rejected as true enemies.

Jesus was humble, yet confident. He washed the disciples’ feet, not because He under-valued Himself, but because He knew His value; He knew Who He was. He was nourished by God’s expressed thoughts about Him and this guided who He was and what He did. Even He knew that he couldn’t “afford to think thoughts about [Himself] that God [didn’t] think about [Him].” – Pastor Bill Johnson, Bethel Church, Redding, Ca.

MAKE AN IMPACT WITH RADICAL RENEWAL

This seems like a radical concept, but it really isn’t: in order to thrive, in order to walk in our identity in Christ, enjoying mental and spiritual health, we must tattoo our minds with His thoughts about us. To understand His heart and His thoughts toward us, we are to be consumed.

What is the alternative? What is the cost of resigning ourselves to live beneath His view of us? What is the cost of our failure to doubt our doubts regarding how He feels about us? Who will be left to flounder without a hope of fully manifesting their destiny because we have bought into a lie that keeps us from manifesting our own?

When it comes to our potential impact in the lives of those around us, we must live out the same passionate availability and sensitivity to Him that is necessary to renew our own minds.

IN HIS IMAGE – GAIN VISION, GIVE HOPE

Truth be told, we are God’s replica. In the beginning, God saw a dark void, but called creation out of it anyway [Genesis 1]. He garnished the night sky using the creative force of His breath, and, having made man like Himself, took that same breath and filled his lungs with it [Job 26:13; Genesis 2:7]. Equipped with life-giving creativity and authority, mankind was given a voice with which to exercise both [Genesis 2:20].

This magnificence characterizes only the starting point for humankind, the launching pad. The Creator, God, has always wanted so much more for us. He always saw us as great and wanted us close, no matter how much we shunned Him. His love for us consumed Him, triggering a relentless and patient pursuit to win our hearts.

Christians embrace this reality because, after all, His goodness leads them to repentance [Romans 2:4]. But, especially in these days, it helps to be reminded that He sees others in a redemptive way, far beyond wherever they might currently be and exactly the same way He sees us.

Imagine that for a minute.

This shouldn’t be a stretch for Christians. But some of the meanest people around are the ones who call themselves filled with God’s Spirit. Some Christians judge others by their actions and themselves by their motivations, oblivious to their own imbalances and blind spots.

When we contemplate those we most resent, It’s hard for us to imagine that God is leaning toward them with the same passion He has for us. Still more mind-boggling is that God might actually desire to express His heart directly to others through our contrite and fervent intercession, and through our tender yet impactful words of knowledge, empowerment, prophesy, & emancipation.

This is possible because the Holy Spirit, the most overlooked Person of the Godhead enables us to literally co-create with the Father. We are empowered to call into existence unseen treasure in those we encounter and speak life to the dry places in their lives with a profound and often illogical hope. Why? Because we have our Father’s eyes!! We aren’t blind to limitations and harsh realities. We just know that our Father authored the greatest come-back of all time in Jesus’ resurrection and that, in Him, what seems impossible becomes realistic.

This role is not limited to church leaders. (So if you’re waiting for permission, PERMISSION GRANTED!) Every Christian is called to experience God deeply and then, with vision and hope, pour into others, straight from God’s heart to theirs.

When we fully saturate our own minds in His word connecting us to our own identity in Christ, our impact in our homes and communities shifts, because only Christians are uniquely equipped to see and decree unencumbered healing, freedom, and growth first in their own lives, and then in the lives around them. So let’s go!