MY IDENTITY IN CHRIST

By Babawale Oluwafunmito

SAFACS 2023 ENTRY 17

The laughter all around her was deafening. Hephzibah stared at the tray of food in her hands, and she suddenly didn’t know what to do with it anymore. She looked at the faces that laughed at her as her lips quivered. The familiar tears welled up in her eyes, and they rolled down her chubby cheeks.

It wasn’t her fault that she was fat. She was born that way, and ever since she clocked twelve, her mother had made sure she ate healthy and exercised as much as she could. Hephzibah was trying her best, but people were oblivious to her efforts.

She silently dropped her tray of food on the table and walked out of the Cafeteria. If there was anything she hated the most, it was the way her heart quickly responded to insults. She wanted to look like the other girls in her class; they were beautiful with slim figures, and all the boys in her class wanted to befriend them.

“That’s not the kind of life you should dream of, Hephzibah. God has better plans for you…” her mother would always say, but Hephzibah couldn’t believe her, nor could she blame her. She was very beautiful, and she guessed that was one of the reasons why her father married her.

She got home looking very exhausted and sad, and the moment she walked through the door, her mother knew something had happened.

“What’s wrong, darling? You look so sad, " her mother asked.

“I’m fine,” she hastily replied, but she was getting choked up with her tears. She hurriedly greeted her father and ran up the stairs to her room. She dropped her bag and went to take her bath. Sitting at her reading table, she tried to think of an excuse not to eat her dinner, but she wasn’t a very convincing liar.

A knock on her door interrupted her line of thought. “Come in,” she said. Her father walked in, and she smiled because she knew he was the one knocking.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he said as he playfully tousled her hair. “How did your day go?”

Hephzibah knew her father loved her, and he wasn’t asking as a routine; he really wanted to know.

“It wasn’t so good. The other kids laughed at me because they saw a tray of food in my hands. They called me “shorty-fatty’’. She hung her head as the tears began to fall again.

Her father lifted her chin and said, “Those are not the names that God calls you. Have you ever checked through the Bible to see your name?”

“My name?”

“Yes, you have an Identity in Christ. It doesn’t matter the names they call you; they aren’t yours to bear.”

He took her chubby palm in his and said, “He calls you beautiful, loved, chosen, and His own delight.” He smiled at her and wiped an errant tear from her cheek.

She smiled at the strength of his words and said, “I am Abba’s Delight.”