Hot flashes aren’t a normal topic here on A Cultural Shift. While I have certainly experienced my fair share of hot flashes (and perhaps a little PMS over the years), I’m not here to talk about them in the classic sense of the word.
Bear with me for a moment and consider the nature of hot flashes: episodes of heat and sweating that alternate with cooling off, sometimes feeling cold and shivering. Once you think it’s over, without any apparent provocation, it starts all over again.
Rinse and repeat.
Hot flashes are like social media
Life, sometimes, has experiences running in tandem. Like hot flashes and social media.
I know, I know. Comparing hot flashes to social media may be an online first (in fact, I am quite sure it is, maybe this will mark my rise to fame 😅 for originality). But stay with me. The more I thought about it, the more the comparison made sense. Society has always had a way of making us feel warmly accepted one moment and left standing in the cold the next. Social media may have amplified the experience, but it surely didn’t invent it.
Whether it’s likes and follows, invitations and promotions, or simply feeling included in the conversation, the temperature can change remarkably fast. One day you’re in. The next day, you’re wondering what happened and where you stand.
Not a bag of chips
I write a lot. I write for A Cultural Shift, of course, but also for our mission, Africa & Beyond, where I write newsletters, reports, curriculum, and other things that take up my time. Also, I write for a couple of other online blogs (Cup of Faith and Salt and Sparrow, check them out) and Substack (check them out, too). That being the case, I am exposed to various social platforms, such as Pinterest and Facebook, where I share many of my posts.
Writing is my thing, but social media has made me keenly aware that I am not all that and a bag of chips. One day, I may write what I think is a decent post that was truly inspired, leaving me feeling rather chuffed (happy). Then I discover the views are down, nobody seems to be reading it, and suddenly I’m not nearly as chuffed as I was ten minutes ago.
Rinse and repeat.
Changing the thermostat
I wonder why we are so ready to hand others the permission to change the thermostat of our self-worth.
My struggle with self-worth began when I was very young. Being the daughter of immigrant parents who barely spoke English (and when they did speak in English, it was with a heavy accent) made me an obvious target for bullying.
I was a misfit, desperately trying to fit in. And that desperation followed me for many years.
Breaking free from my self-assigned label as a misfit required an intentional effort on my part. While others may have attached the label to me, I was the one who accepted it. Gradually, I stopped hearing negative words as opinions and began accepting them as truth. Before long, they found their way into my own thoughts and conversations. I wasn’t just hearing them from others anymore. I was repeating them to myself:
You don’t belong.
You sound stupid.
You won’t amount to anything.
Selective hearing
Of course, not everything said to me was negative. I had teachers, friends, and family members who tried to encourage me. Yet it was as if I had developed selective hearing. The positive words never seemed to stick, while the critical ones settled deep into my heart. Before long, “misfit” wasn’t something I heard. It was someone I believed I was.
I knew that seeing myself as I did wasn’t the way to live; it wasn’t honoring the Lord. I knew that God didn’t make failures, but I usually applied that knowledge to others, thinking I wasn’t included in that part of production.
But I really did try to believe it when people told me to think positively, to be positive. I would succeed for a while and start to feel better about myself. Hot. Then a criticism, a rejection, a failure, or simply a bad day would come along, and I would find myself right back where I started. Cold, like hot flashes. The thermostat of my self-worth was still in someone else’s hands.
I was the misfit. It was who I was anyway, so why try?
A new creation
Then one day, I read something captivating:
For most of my life, I had been trying to rehabilitate the misfit. Encourage her. Speak kindly to her. Think positively about her. Yet God wasn’t offering self-improvement. He was offering transformation.
If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
A new creation doesn’t need a better label. A new creation needs to stop answering to the old one.
This was my first encounter with God, in His Word, where He revealed Himself to me as a Father. He had given me His name and accepted me into His family. For the first time, my identity was no longer rooted in what others had said about me, but in what He said about me. I was no longer the misfit; I was His child.
The great thing about encountering God is that He never leaves you as you were. When I read those words from 2 Corinthians 5:17, I understood that I had spent altogether too much time answering to a name God had never given me.
A new name
Children traditionally assume their fathers’ names and identities. The same holds true when we accept God as our Heavenly Father. The names we carried in the past: failure, loser, stupid, worthless, and maybe misfit, have changed. We take on His name.
There’s a man in the Old Testament named Jacob. His identity, from the time he was born, was Jacob, meaning “deceiver.” And he certainly was a deceiver. He spent most of his adult life scheming. It wasn’t until he came to the end of himself that he wrestled with God and acknowledged the name given him. Once he did, God changed his name to Israel, meaning “Prince with God.”
And Jacob was left alone. And a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day. When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he touched his hip socket, and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. Then he said, “Let me go, for the day has broken.” But Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” And he said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.” Then he said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men, and have prevailed.”
Genesis 32:24-28 (ESV)
What is your name today? What label has been assigned to you, and that you have accepted? It’s time to stop answering to the old name. God has a new one for you.
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