We’re standing on the edge of a new year, and I’ve found myself with more space to breathe than usual.
Florida has a way of slowing everything down. Recovery does too. As illness worked its way through our family, life narrowed to simple, steady moments, watching the waves roll in and out without urgency, sitting by a campfire in the evenings as the air cooled, noticing dolphins surface briefly and disappear again just offshore. In that quiet, when there was nothing to rush toward and nowhere I needed to be, my thoughts kept returning to a single, rather random question: Who does God say we are?
The world has no shortage of answers. It tells us to look a certain way, speak a certain way, fit neatly into a narrow, carefully defined box. It insists that we should all somehow be the same, polished, perfected, and perpetually improving. This week, I’ve watched more television than I normally do, and with it, more advertisements than I usually see. I’m not often exposed to them; a busy schedule and ad-free YouTube tend to shield me from most of that noise. But watching now, I couldn’t help noticing how tight the world’s definition of beauty has become. How repetitive. How uniform. How exhausting.
And yet, nothing about God is uniform.
He is endlessly creative, and His creation reflects that truth everywhere we look. The ocean doesn’t apologize for its depth or variety. No two waves arrive exactly the same way, and still, they all belong. Dolphins don’t question whether they measure up before breaking the surface. Diversity isn’t a flaw in God’s design. It is the design.
Scripture affirms this in a way that feels deeply personal:
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
—Psalm 139:13–14
God didn’t rush when He made you. He didn’t mass-produce you or copy someone else’s blueprint. The psalmist tells us He knit you together, intentionally, thoughtfully, with care woven into every part of who you are. Long before the world formed an opinion about your worth, God had already declared it.
And then there is this reminder from Peter, one that feels especially grounding in a culture that constantly asks us to prove ourselves:
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession…”
—1 Peter 2:9
Chosen. Royal. Set apart.
God calls us His daughters, and that makes us royalty, not in a loud or self-important way, but in the quiet confidence of belonging to the Most High King. He calls us set apart, not because we are better, but because we are His. And for those of us who stand for Jesus, especially in a world that often resists Him, Scripture reminds us that we are also warriors. Not always visible. Not always recognized. But faithful, steady, and strong in ways that matter deeply in the spiritual realm.
So while the world insists that we are not enough, God says something entirely different. He calls us precious. He calls us loved. He calls us His own.
As a new year approaches, this is what I want to carry with me, and what I want to gently remind any woman who may be reading: you do not belong to the world’s definition. You belong to God. And that truth changes everything.
The Anointing (Imagined by me)
The brothers stood in a line.
Their presence filled the space, men accustomed to being noticed, shoulders squared, faces confident, hands calloused from work that could be seen and measured. They looked like leaders. They looked like men who belonged at the center of the room. Samuel studied them carefully, searching for the familiar inner confirmation he had learned to trust, yet with each passing moment, the silence grew heavier.
No.
Not him.
Not this one either.
The line that had seemed so certain now felt unfinished, incomplete. Samuel hesitated, the weight of obedience pressing in on him. He had come with clear instructions, and yet none of the obvious choices fit. Finally, he asked the question that changed everything.
“Are these all the sons you have?”
There was a pause. Almost an afterthought.
“Well… there is still the youngest,” Jesse said. “But he’s out in the fields, tending the sheep.”
Jesse’s answer came casually, as if it hardly mattered. There was still the youngest, he said, but the work was ordinary. The boy was young. No one had thought it necessary to call him in.
Time stretched as someone was sent to fetch him. Dust clung to David when he arrived, the scent of the field still on him. His clothes bore the marks of work done far from witnesses. He hadn’t prepared for this moment because he hadn’t known it existed. He stood there, uncertain and out of place, surrounded by older brothers who had already measured themselves worthy of something greater. It would have been easy for him to shrink back, to wonder why he had been summoned at all.
Before anyone else could speak, God did.
Without hesitation, without explanation, the instruction was clear. This is the one.
Samuel moved forward, oil in hand, and the room seemed to hold its breath. The act itself was quiet, almost understated, yet its meaning thundered beneath the surface. As the oil touched David’s head, something irreversible took place. The youngest son, forgotten, uninvited, still smelling of sheep, was anointed king.
Shock rippled through the room. Confusion. Disbelief. Perhaps even offense. The brothers who had stood so confidently moments before now had no words. The father who hadn’t thought to call his son in from the field watched as God overturned every assumption he had carried. No crown appeared. No throne followed. Only a declaration from heaven that rewrote the story entirely.
It was then that God spoke words that still unsettle our assumptions today: People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.
David left that place the same way he had entered it, no crown, no army, no change in status that the world could recognize. He would return to the fields. He would wait. But something had been spoken over him that could not be undone. God had named him long before the world would ever agree.
And maybe that is the part we most need to remember.
God’s view of you is not shaped by who notices you, who invites you in, or who overlooks you entirely. His declaration does not wait for the approval of others or the validation of the visible. He sees the heart. And what He sees, He calls enough.
What's In A Name?
If you had asked David who he was, on that day before the oil, before the throne, before the songs, he would have answered simply. He was a shepherd. A young boy tending sheep. Someone responsible for keeping watch, for leading quietly, for protecting what was vulnerable. He would not have said “king.” Yet God looked at his heart and spoke a different name entirely.
And it makes me wonder if the same might be true for us.
So often we define ourselves by what we do. A grocery store clerk. An accountant. A lawyer. A teacher. A mother. A widow. Disabled. Overlooked. Faithful but tired. These labels may describe our circumstances, but they are not the full story. When God looked at David’s heart, He saw a king long before the world was ready to agree. It makes me pause and ask what He sees when He looks at us, here and now.
Because when God looks at the heart, He sees everything.
He sees the love we carry and the pain we’ve learned to live with. He sees the quiet ferocity it takes to keep showing up when life hasn’t been fair. He sees those who remain faithful to their commitments even when no one notices. He sees mothers who pour themselves out for their children, especially when their own stories were marked by absence or harm. He sees the widow. He sees the disabled. He sees what the world reduces to a category, and then He looks past it.
That’s not what God calls them.
That’s not what God calls you.
God names by the heart.
Have you ever wondered what He might say if He were to pronounce something over you? Try, just for a moment, to set aside the negative voices—we all carry them, and yes, we all carry sin—but imagine instead what God might delight in naming.
Creative.
Wise.
Steady.
Good with numbers.
Loyal.
A woman of great love.
A contagious laugh.
A gentle strength.
A heart shaped for compassion.
Perhaps even a heart of a princess.
Identity isn’t something we have to chase or prove. It’s something we receive. Long before the world speaks its labels over us, God has already named us by the heart. So as you step forward, into a new year, a new season, or simply another ordinary day, hold onto this: you are seen fully, known deeply, and called something beautiful by the One who made you. And whatever else may try to define you, let His voice be the one that lingers longest.
