About This Series
Started during Pride Month 2025, this series is for anyone who’s ever been told they had to become someone else to be loved by God. It’s a journey of returning to the sacred self God created—especially for those whose stories have been silenced or shamed.
Read Psalm 139:13-16
ALSO IN SCRIPTURE
“The Lord doesn’t see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1 Samuel 16:7b NLT)
We live in a world obsessed with image, identity, and self-improvement—but rarely in ways that honor the sacred self God already created. From a young age, we’re taught who to be, how to behave, and what parts of ourselves to silence if we want to be accepted. Some of us spend years trying to become the version of ourselves that others will finally call good. But what if holiness isn’t about becoming someone else? What if it’s about remembering who we were all along—the person God saw and called good from the very beginning?
Part 1: Not Who We Wished God Made. He stood in front of the mirror like it was a witness. Shirt off. Breath held. Not to admire—never that—but to prepare. He tugged at his shirt before even putting it on, stretching it so it wouldn’t cling. Shoulders slouched inward, more defense than posture. He didn’t hate his body—not exactly. But he’d spent years treating it like something to apologize for.
And the mirror remembered.
It remembered the kitchen table—age eight—when his uncle laughed and told him to stop stuffing his face or he’d turn into a walking meatball. “Better learn now, kid. Nobody marries the fat one.” The words stuck harder than the food ever did.
It remembered middle school, when boys hooked their fingers through the loop on the back of his shirt—the so-called “fag tag”—and yanked, grinning as they spit the word like gum. It was supposed to be funny. It wasn’t. And it didn’t stop.
It remembered the church potluck, the woman at the serving table who gave him a second helping with a wink and said, “Don’t worry—God loves us big boys too.” Her tone was sweet. The shame was not.
It remembered the date who ghosted. The pastor who called his baggy clothes a sign of humility. The job interview where no one looked him in the eye until he mentioned his degree.
Every time he dressed, it became a kind of translation. What do they want to see today? Not too loud. Not too soft. Not too “emotional.” Not too “fabulous.” Just… not too much.
He didn’t want to be admired. He just didn’t want to be erased. And in that quiet, staring back at himself, he still wondered—though he feared the answer—if God looked at him the same way he did: through the eyes of everyone who’d wished him smaller.
The psalmist wrote, “You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb.” That’s not a metaphor for a sanitized version of ourselves—it’s the raw, real beginning. God saw everything—every curve, every quirk, every contradiction—and called it wonderfully made.
But that’s not the version most of us were taught to love. Somewhere along the way, someone handed us a template: be strong, but not soft. Be pure, but not weird. Be faithful, but not too much of yourself. The result? We try to become who we think God wished God made—shaving off the parts that might offend, hiding the parts that don’t “belong.”
Yet Psalm 139 isn’t about who we might become if we work hard enough. It’s about the God who already saw us and called us good. Before the world told us to shrink, God was already forming something beautiful. Before the bullies, the uncles, the pulpits, the potlucks—God was already knitting. Already blessing. Already calling us known.
When we try to become someone else for the sake of belonging, we aren’t just hiding ourselves—we’re denying the sacredness of God’s design. That doesn’t mean we don’t grow, repent, or transform. But transformation doesn’t mean erasure. Becoming doesn’t mean abandoning. It means unfolding—step by step—into the truth that was planted in us before we ever knew how to be afraid of it.
The question isn’t whether God loves us. That part is settled. The question is: will we stop wishing to be someone else long enough to believe it?
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
God doesn’t love the version of you you’ve performed to survive. God loves you. The real, unfiltered, unpolished you. That’s where becoming begins.PRAYER
God, forgive me for chasing someone you never asked me to become. Help me remember who you made me to be—and to trust that it is good. Amen.
Devotion written by Rev. Todd R. Lattig with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI).
