I recently went to the Chesapeake Courthouse to file a petition. This is the second time in my life that I have done this. The first time, I was there as a terrified mom, small child in hand, seeking justice and escape from a situation I desperately wished would prove to be a very, very bad dream. This time, I went freely and with great purpose. I went to get my name back.

In a week or so, I will receive an order signed by a judge that officially changes my name to Melissa Delayne Dean—the name on my birth certificate from 1970. The name I grew up with, graduated from college with, and left at the wedding altar almost twenty-seven years ago. A name I never expected or wanted to use again.

Aside from the logistics that await me when I receive that court order—think DMV, Social Security and military ID offices, banking, insurance, mortgage, and on and on and on—this act has prompted a lot of self-reflection about identity. I didn’t want to change my name. I have edited and taught and published articles under my name for just under three decades. I gave birth to five and adopted three children who share what will soon be my former name. I speak it easily, sign it comfortably (albeit it unrecognizably), and am known by it in every circle of my life.

In some ways, returning to my birth name feels like going backwards. Who wants to return to their 22-year-old self? Not me! I was so very clueless then—insecure and foolish in so many ways. I found my self-worth in others and was willing to be used and deceived in exchange for “love” and security.

But as I began to lament that aspect of my decision to return to the courthouse, the Lord reminded me of this passage of Scripture:

“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, ‘Who do people say that the Son of Man is?’ And they said, ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.’ He said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter replied, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’ And Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.’” (Matthew 16:13-17, ESV)

I have always focused on the obvious message of this incident—Peter’s affirmation of Christ’s deity and Jesus’s subsequent blessing and declaration a few verses later that Peter would be the rock on which Christ’s church would be built. And of course, that message is true and powerful and very important.

But the Word is living and active, and God uses it to speak truth into our current situations as well. And what He said as I read this word afresh was that I should ask Him the same question He asked Peter: Who do you say that I am?

How many other places do we turn for the answer to that question? Social media, our careers, our bank account balances, our reputations, our public image, the approval of our family or friends, the titles that accompany or don’t accompany our names.

Over the past year and a half, I have experienced an enormous amount of spiritual warfare. The enemy never plays fair and always goes after the things you value most. He is the father of lies, and he binds people up so tightly they cannot even feel their own oppression. As he has waged his war, I have at times unknowingly cooperated with him. But the more I have been forced into the arms of Jesus—the one who comforts me, fights for me, avenges wrongs on my behalf, understands the pain of betrayal, cries with me, sings over me, instructs me, shields me, holds me, and simply loves me—the more I have begun to recognize when the enemy is trying to distract me, bait me, and suck me into his game.

Identity is one of those battlegrounds. Satan wants us to look to the world, to each other, to ourselves, and to our circumstances for definition. And he loves to whisper his own suggestions if we will listen–“not enough, replaceable, unworthy, condemned.” How willingly we cooperate with his game, defining one another by external characteristics like age, gender, race, sexual orientation, economic status.  But the Lord wants us to look to Him, the One who made us–each and every one of us–in His perfect image. The One who knows every hair on our head, who put the very breath in our lungs. The One who sees us when no one else does.  The One who knows our heart–and loves us anyway. Jesus’s response to Peter’s accurate proclamation of His deity shows us exactly where to look for our own identity: “Blessed are you…For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.”

When that court order arrives in my mailbox, I may have a lot of headaches awaiting me as I unravel 27-years of life as Melissa Dean Barnes and reinstate myself as Melissa Delayne Dean, but I am not going back to an inferior version of myself when I return to my birth name. I am reclaiming my identity from someone who did not cherish it and returning it to the only One who ever will—the only One to whom I should be asking, “Who do you say that I am?” And the only One capable of revealing that identity to me.

 

“For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” (Psalm 139:13-16, ESV)