Years ago, someone asked me the question “Who are you?” in the form of a challenge. Today, I could say that I am a wife, daughter, step-mom, friend, writer. But my answer would be faced with: “That’s what you are. I want to know who you are.” For people to define who they are is amazingly difficult. Even my current answer–and the one I had then–would trigger the dreaded response, but it’s the best answer to define me.

I am and have always been a Christian, a child of the Living God. The first song I ever wrote was “I Love Jesus” back when I was five or six. My first research paper when I was young was about the making of the King James Bible. In college, I interpretted two literary pieces using Bible study techniques and stunned the professor–he’d never thought to do that before. I defended the Christian position about the separation of Church and State in French because our professor wanted us to have a more substantial use of the language than just “Bon soir, comment allez vous.” I later presented the same discourse in English for a philosophy class in front of a mass of liberals who thought I was insane (though some quietly approached later and admitted I had a point). In grad school, one of my final papers was for my criminal law class. I wrote about the Biblical penal code. Got an A on it, too.

Although I may not always act like a Christian, although there are periods of my life I now look back upon with shame, I have always been a Christian. Being a Christian gives me an identity, a purpose and a goal. It transcends “wife, daughter, step-mom, friend, writer” and gives me a value not of my own making; it gives me a sense of history and destiny. When I consider Whose I am–Who chose me to be His–it fills me with a giddy awe. The King and Creator considers me important. And, because of Him, I know who I am.

I am a Christian, a child of the Living God.