There was a morning after my divorce when I stared into the mirror and thought,
“I don’t even know her anymore.”
For years, I’d only known myself through what others told me — especially my ex-husband.
He said I was terrible with money.
He said I couldn’t be trusted with decisions.
And after hearing it long enough, I started to believe it.
He used to keep my name off every bank account and debit card, and at the time, I thought maybe he was right. Maybe I really was bad with money.
But after the divorce, when everything fell apart, that thought started to shift into a question:
“Wait… what if that wasn’t true?”
The Rabbit Hole That Saved Me
That question sent me down a rabbit hole — but it turned out to be the best one I’ve ever fallen into.
I started asking God who He said I was, not who others said I was.
And that’s when Psalm 139 came alive to me.
I’d read it a hundred times before, but when I opened The Passion Translation one night, the words hit differently — like God was reading them straight into the cracks of my heart. (my thoughts added)
Psalm 139 (TPT)
Lord, you know everything there is to know about me — (that says so much!)
You perceive every movement of my heart and soul — (all my thoughts, emotions, and actions).
You understand my every thought before it even enters my mind.
You are so intimately aware of me, Lord — (kind of scary!)
You read me like an open book.
You know all the words I’m about to speak before I even start a sentence.
You know every step I will take before my journey even begins.
You’ve gone into my future to prepare the way — (one that brings hope – Jer 29:11).
And in kindness you follow behind me — (Ps 23 – Your goodness chases me down)
to spare me from the harm of my past — (bye shame, guilt, and disappointment).
You have laid your hand on me.
This is just too wonderful, deep, and incomprehensible!
Your understanding of me brings me wonder and strength.
The Moment It Clicked
I remember closing my Bible and just sitting there, letting it sink in.
If God — the One who knows every single part of me, past, present, and future — still chooses kindness, still prepares hope, still follows behind me with goodness instead of judgment…
Then He’s the only One who gets to define me.
Not my ex.
Not my mistakes.
Not my circumstances.
Only Him.
Because the One who truly knows you is the only One qualified to name you.
From False Labels to True Identity
That night became the start of something new for me, and it can be for you too.
Rebuilding identity isn’t about reinventing yourself, like the world would have you believe.
It’s about rediscovering who you were created to be, your true identity — before the world, the marriage, the trauma, the lies or the enemy told you otherwise.
If you’re sitting in that space right now — unsure, a little lost — here’s one small step that helped me:
Write down the lies.
Everything you’ve been told that doesn’t line up with how God sees you.
Then rip them up, and replace them with truth. I wanted it really personal, so I took actual sticker labels and wrote a sticker for each one on one side of paper. On the other side, I looked up (google makes it easy lol) what God says about that specific thing, and I wrote it on a label for the other side of the paper.
When you start trading false labels for true ones, it doesn’t just change how you see yourself — it changes how you live.
You are not the worst thing that’s happened to you.
You are not the sum of someone else’s opinion.
You are the masterpiece of the One who knows you best and loves you most.
That realization didn’t just repair my self-worth — it re-rooted my whole life.
Your Turn
You can deep dive on this exercise or just choose one thing that keeps running through your mind at top speed. Find and replace it with what God says.
If you need more help with this, we can spend time together digging all the old thoughts out and replacing them with new ones with a four part system I created just for this in the Hopeful Healing Boxes. I teach you how to Build a Thought, which is powerful! Here’s to seeing you there!
xo ♥️
Kristi