There are seasons when a woman has to re-learn herself. After the divorce. After the diagnosis. After the job ended, the friendship ended, the version of you that everyone depended on ended. In those seasons the old labels come looking for you, and some of them are cruel. So this post is simple on purpose: ten places where God already answered the question of who you are, with a short word on each. Read them slowly. Better yet, read one a day and let it argue with the label.

1. You are made on purpose

"I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). Not assembled from leftovers. Made, with intention, by Someone who does not do accidents.

2. You are chosen

"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (John 15:16). You were not the last pick who snuck in. The choosing started on His side.

3. You are loved with a love that predates your performance

"I have loved thee with an everlasting love" (Jeremiah 31:3). Everlasting runs in both directions. He did not start loving you when you got it together, and He will not stop when you fall apart.

4. You are forgiven, fully

"As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12). East and west never meet. That distance was chosen deliberately, for the woman who keeps re-carrying what God already carried off.

5. You are new

"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away" (2 Corinthians 5:17). The old season gets to inform you. It does not get to name you.

6. You are His workmanship

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works" (Ephesians 2:10). The word carries the sense of a crafted work, a poem. There is work ahead that is shaped like you.

7. You are not condemned

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1). The inner prosecutor does not get the last word. Now means now, not after you improve.

8. You are held

"I the LORD thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not; I will help thee" (Isaiah 41:13). Not watched from a distance. Held, hand in hand, mid-fear.

9. You are more than what happened to you

"Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us" (Romans 8:37). Paul's list right before this verse is full of hard things. Conquering happens in them, not after them.

10. You are known, and still wanted

"O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me" (Psalm 139:1). The fear under every other fear is that being fully known means being finally rejected. He is the proof it does not.

I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.Psalm 139:14

One more thing. The last phrase of that verse says "that my soul knoweth right well." Knowing it right well is the project. Not just agreeing with these verses, but letting them move from the page into the places where the old labels live. That takes more than one reading; it takes a season of sitting with Scripture until it sounds truer than the voice it is replacing. That is slow work. It is also the best work you will ever do.

With you on the journey,
Autumn