Who are you?

The class period was nearly over.

“Pop quiz,” announced the teacher. The entire class groaned in unison. It was ten minutes until the bell on a Friday afternoon!

“The test has only three questions.” Three questions? Miss one question and you’ve failed! This is crazy!

“I won’t be collecting the test. It is for your own information only. Take out a sheet of paper and a pencil.” I looked at a classmate in puzzlement. What was going on?

“Question 1: Who are you?”

I wrote my name, assuming that my classmates did the same.

“Question 2: Who are you?”

I heard someone snicker behind me. I wasn’t sure anything was funny, I just thought it was weird. “I am a high school student,” I wrote.

After another pause:

“Question 3: Who are you?”

We all looked at each other in confusion. I think I wrote that I was a daughter, sister, and granddaughter. I was very glad that the papers weren’t to be turned in.

We put down our pencils. The teacher rose from his chair and moved in front of his desk. “I know you’re confused by these questions,” he said. “But I’ve asked them for an important reason. In a couple of years you will leave this building for the last time to make your way in the world. Some of you will go to college, some will go to work. Your lives may go in very different directions. The one thing you all have in common, the one way in which you are all alike, is the need to discover who you are.”

Every eye was on him.

“Is your name who you are? Is it your athletic ability? Your grades? Your popularity? Is it your occupation? If you are a Christian, did you say so?

“Only you can answer the question, ‘Who are you?’ But it’s a question that you must answer. If you don’t know who you are, you run the risk that someone else will define you, and wrongly. It’s not too soon to figure it out. Who are you?”

As if on cue, the bell rang. “Dismissed,” the teacher said.

We walked out of the room into the crowded hallway. I didn’t talk to any of my classmates about what had happened. I was embarrassed that, although I had been a Christian for several years, I hadn’t written that down.

A teacher in the public school system today would probably be fired for mentioning Christ in the context of such a quiz. But the question, “If you’re a Christian, did you say so?’” haunted me for years. At the time, I had made a profession of faith in Christ, but had not even thought of that when asked “Who are you?”

We spend years developing external identifiers. I am now a daughter, wife, mother, friend, volunteer, musician, employee, organization member, citizen, and more. Those are all important aspects of who I am. But external identifiers can change or even disappear. If my self-definition is completely linked to those, I am on shaky ground. The world is a fickle place. Families evolve, jobs end, friendships fizzle, glory days fade into the distant past. But my connection to God, and to his Son Jesus, is unbreakable. So I want my identity to be grounded in that.

During the season of Lent, Christians are encouraged to engage in a time of meditation, reminding ourselves of our need of God’s grace as we move toward the Easter celebration of Jesus’ resurrection. In my meditating, I think about that long-ago teacher and his pop quiz. That question set me on the journey to discovering just who I really was.

So ask me ‘Who are you?’ and I’ll tell you: I’m a child of God, and a follower of Christ. You won’t have to ask me three times.

(Dallas Morning News 3-08-09)