Defined

When I was in my last year of high school, a friend and I decided to do something a little different.

We signed up for ballet lessons. 

I had never done a plie before. I had never worn ballet slippers. I had never even danced before. (Beside school dances and let's not go there.)
I confess, this girl didn't have dance moves by any stretch of the imagination. 

So, taking ballet was a brave choice. One would say maybe even an odd choice for a couple of dance-deficient teenage girls. 
But that's what we did.

Our teacher was a tiny woman of European descent with a strong vocal accent, named Gabriella. 

I remember her teaching us the five basic ballet positions. And that she was a bit intimidating. 
That's pretty much all I recall about those lessons. 

It was during a time when I loved ballet. I had ballet posters on my wall, and a pair of ballet slippers hanging beside them. Mikhail Baryshnikov's name rolled off my tongue fluidly.
Something about the ballet spoke to me. And I hadn't even seen a ballet performance. 
It was the human body. 
The elegance. 
The beauty. 
The strength.

At some point in my ballet-loving years, I went to Toronto to see a professional performance of The Nutcracker. 

We had seats that were way at the back, up in the balcony. Almost the farthest seats from the stage. 
And I remember something from that performance. Besides the fact that I enjoyed it. 
My biggest take-away was the dancers. 

From my distant viewpoint, I remember looking at the dancers. Not just at the graceful moves, or the costumes; not just the storyline they were telling. 
But at the dancers themselves. 
At the risk of sounding strange, I confess to you here, I loved their muscles. 
I was awestruck in the fact that from my view way up in the back balcony, I could see every muscle that made up the quadriceps. 
(For those of you who don't know, here is a wee anatomy lesson ... the front of the upper leg has four large muscles, forming the Quadriceps, or Quads, as most people call them. They are responsible for extending and bending your leg.)
Those four muscles, I could see very clearly on the tights-clad dancers. Especially the men. 
The muscles were so defined that it was distracting.

I could have been looking at a musculoskeletal drawing in an anatomy text. 

They were that defined. That outlined. 

The image stuck in my brain, and I ended up going to college and studying human anatomy in my school program.

That muscles could be so defined, so intricately and perfectly designed to control movement and provide strength, was fascinating to me.

To be so defined, so clearly marked, that I could see four muscles from my seat in the balcony - it had me engrossed. 

The elegance.

The beauty.

The strength.

We use that word - defined - when we speak of well-lined muscles, but also in terms of what it means to just be.
And sometimes we ask hard questions.

~ Who am I?

~ What is my value?

~ What can I offer?

~ Who am I supposed to be?

~ What defines me?

~ Who. Am. I. 

We have to ask the hard questions in order to understand our identity. 

Sometimes the environment we had growing up shapes us; sometimes our circumstances influence how we behave; sometimes people mold us and their words either lift or defeat us; sometimes all of these things teach us to believe lies. 

And we take them on as our definition. These things define who we are. Who we have become.

But.

We're missing the mark here. 

Our true definition can only be found in God. 
The human body has more than six hundred skeletal muscles not to mention the muscles in other body systems such as cardiac, respiratory, digestive ... the list is huge. 
Every single one of these muscles has a purpose - the muscles we see from upper-level balconies at the ballet, and the muscles we don't see. 

The beauty of it is that God sees and knows every single one of them. 

If He has such care to have constructed a purpose to every muscle fiber in the physical body, He takes great care to know us in our deepest places even more so. The relational places. The places where our character becomes defined and our spirit connects.

He has determined and clearly marked out our purpose. 
He had determined and clearly marked out our identity. 
He defines you.

He defines me.

But we don't always see it. 
More often than not, we deny it. 

We get caught up in letting outside forces define who we are instead of allowing God's created, purposed design to define us. 

So, ask the hard questions. 
~Who am I? That's the biggest one. 
And He answers.

I am a child of God. (See Ephesians 2:13.)

I am confident. (See Ephesians 3:12.)
I am made new. (See 2 Corinthians 5:17.)
I am victorious. (See Romans 8:37.)

I am set free. (See Romans 8:1.)

I am forgiven. (See Romans 3:24.)

I am loved. (See Romans 8:38-39.)

I am His. (See Isaiah 43:1.)
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; you are Mine."

He defines us. 
And when we accept our definition, all the people in the back balcony seats can see it, and sit in awe at the One who defines.

His elegance.

His beauty.

His strength. 

Christ in me. 

I am defined by Him.