Who do you think you are?

I remember the story like it was yesterday.

Her parents bought her a 10k gold garnet and cubic zirconia ring; her first “real” ring. They gifted it in honor of her 13th birthday, and she was beyond moved. To her, the ring represented their love for her, their pride in her, how she was a good daughter deserving of such a valuable gift.

The next week at school, she arrived in science lab class proudly wearing her shiny new ring. No doubt she showed it to her friends and they wished her happy birthday all over again. Before the end-of-class bell, she approached the sink, removed her ring, set it down on the left side of the faucet, and washed her hands.

She gathered her things and left for the next class.

Within a few minutes, she realized she’d left it, and ran down the hallway to retrieve the ring and get on with her day. Whew! Close call.

It wasn’t there.

Over the next week, she would ask the maintenance crew to check the pipe; surely it was caught in there somewhere. She’d ask the office staff to announce in the morning news that a finder’s reward was ready and waiting.

It was never returned.

Her parents were disappointed but didn’t give her too much grief about it. After all, she didn’t know people wash their hands with their rings on! (It would have been nice if someone had told her that, she thought.) Her parents told her she’d have to earn the money to buy a replacement. So for weeks, she engaged in additional chores around the house, earned all but $3 of the total. Her parents bought her a second ring and all was well…

…until, days later, she smashed it in a car door and bent it in half.

Ruining that second ring was nearly too much to bear. She huddled on her bedroom floor in tears, telling herself it’s not worth it, this it too hard, she could not go on, she could not tell them she damaged the ring. She contemplated how it would be better to not live anymore.

Gratefully, she thought better of ending it all over a $78 ring, and she never really started planning anything, but she was heartbroken. She felt deep despair over the possibility of disappointing her parents again. How ungrateful she would look. How upset they would be. How much they would not love her anymore.

Eventually, the dents were banged out of the ring, but she doesn’t really remember when. She only knows they were, because today it sits round and perfect in my jewelry box.

Through experience and mind-made thoughts, I assigned myself the role of “perfect child” in my family growing up…and years later, too. I made my parents smile. I was grateful and didn’t cause upset. I didn’t need to be worried over. As a young person, the construct of “who I am” was deeply dependent upon what my parents thought of me.

From a broken home, I became a child who wanted to fix things – make it better, make them laugh, heal the pain. When I encountered the fear that my parents would not love me anymore if I had confessed that I had bent the ring, it was too much. On that morning in my bedroom in the 7th grade, I would rather have been dead than have my biggest fear become a reality.

The roles we play, while convenient for our little minds, are extremely limiting definitions of who we really are. I assigned myself the role of “awesome daughter,” just as today I assign myself the role of “writer,” “mother,” and “wife,” among others. Roles help us understand what to do and not to do (meet my deadlines, feed my child, be a confidant for my husband), but in an instant, they can turn against us.

We are not the roles we play. Our minds – for convenience, reassurance, and to help us understand our parts in life’s screenplay – use roles to help us navigate the world.

My friend said to me on the phone earlier this week, “I’m on my 11th fire extinguisher this morning. All I’ve done is put out fires.”

“Well, if anyone can do it, you can,” I replied.

“But I don’t want that job anymore,” she said.

I thought to myself, “I need to tell her she doesn’t have to have that job anymore,” but I didn’t.

“I’m so tired of being bullied!” another friend told me over coffee. Tears trickled down her cheeks. I held her hand. All I could think to say was, “I know.”

Sometimes we must abandon our roles. They may fit our needs well in one instance and be completely heartbreaking in another. They may be salvageable, but sometimes they just gotta go. They don’t always create happiness in us.

Eckhart Tolle, in his book A New Earth, writes:

• “(Do) whatever is required of you in any situation without it becoming a role you identify with. (This) is an essential lesson in the art of living that each one of us is here to learn.”

• So, who are we, if we are not the roles we play?

• (We are) God’s child(ren), for we are born again of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God, which lives and abides forever. – 1 Peter 1:23

• (We are) alive with Christ. – Ephesians 2:5

• (We are) holy and without blame before Him in love. – Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:16

• (We have) the Greater One living in us; greater is He Who is in (us) than he who is in the world. – 1 John 4:4

And that’s only the beginning.

Today, I play the roles of “has her act together,” “counselor to her friends,” and “happy chick,” so I was hesitant to share this post. But, when we shine the light in dark spaces, we grow, expand, and inch closer to being who God intended us to be. Those are some of my goals with this blog, so I decided to spill it.

May we always remember that the roles in our life situations are fluid, created by our minds, ever-changing and ever vulnerable. May we be comfortable with not knowing what roles are ours, comfortable not having any role at all sometimes, and comfortable changing them. Hey, how about we stop forcing others into roles we’ve created for them, too?

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players,” wrote Shakespeare. I say, the spotlight is brighter when we throw away the scripts.

Amen.