I wish I had read Christie Penner Worden’s The Me I Was Made to Be a decade ago when my sons were entering adolescence and questioning whether they belonged in a majority- 

White community that too often judged them by their skin color. The challenges my boys faced navigating questions about their identity were especially difficult given that their ­parents were a part of the majority-
White community and could not speak to the specifics of their struggles. 

We lacked a roadmap for the journey to discover who God created them to be. I felt like I was flailing, casting about for the right words and actions so that my children might know they were worthy of love, just as they were, despite those who questioned their value. And, when they floundered, I wondered about my worth as a mother and whether I belonged to the community of competent parents I saw around me.

My family — all of us — needed to know (and believe!) that our identity is in Christ alone and that we are beloved. The Me I was Made to Be offers this message. 

Penner Worden does not provide easy prescriptions or a 10-step guide to navigate conversations with children about identity. This is part of the book’s genius. Questions about identity are as individual as the people who ask them, which is to say, nearly infinite. Instead, she sets the table at which we can sit with those we love, exploring together who God created us to be. 

The idea of identity is fraught, its definition distorted by the culture wars and the sense that our identities should be immutable, from the beginning of our lives until their end. Penner Worden rightfully names the tensions now inherent in the idea of identity itself. Our understanding has changed over time. Now, the word “identity” connotes both our sameness to others as well as our differences. We long to identify with others who share our values and interests. We also want to be identified by the characteristics that set us apart. 

Penner Worden suggests such tensions are compounded by our longing for certainty — about our own identity and that of those around us — and the imperfections of a language that insists on binary choices, not only about gender and sexuality but other things as well. While some people might experience their identity as black-and-white, others will understand it through shades of gray. Having conversations about identity means recognizing that “people experience myriad ways of ­being that may seem in conflict with our views of what God intended, however narrow or broad those views may be.” 

Too often, conversations about identity start with an insistence that theological conundrums be settled, sins named and prayed for, healing ­secured. Penner Worden advocates a different approach, one that’s centered on a person’s primary identity as beloved by God, created in God’s image and deserving of love, not judgment: “God is love, Jesus is what God is like, Scripture is a love letter and the Spirit whispers love over you day after day.” She adds that “who you are is beloved, invited, delightful, creative, chosen, seen, accepted.” This is indeed good news. 

Penner Worden mines scripture for clues about how Jesus might approach conversations about identity and says those clues abound in both the Old and New Testaments. Because the Bible is “a love letter, not a textbook,” we might not find all the answers to children’s questions about identity. What we will find, though, is the promise that we are “fearfully, wonderfully made” in God’s image (Psalm 139). 

“Scripture is full of truths about who we are as God’s image bearers, how God sees us, loves us, knows us,” she writes. Jesus did not ask people to change before he developed a relationship with them. He affirmed they were worthy of his presence just as they were.

Penner Worden encourages readers to model a similar expansive love in conversations with children about who they are and whose they are. This can feel especially difficult in a time when children hear complicated messages that can distort their sense of worthiness. Having these conversations requires courage and a willingness to sit in uncomfortable spaces without definite answers beyond what scripture tells us about God’s abundant love.   

The Me I Was Made to Be invites us all to sit with Jesus, experience his presence and know our worth is reflected in his expansive love. It’s a message we all could use now and then, no matter how young or old we are or how we identify.