Backwards But Redeemed | Finding Your True Identity in Christ

In this powerful episode of Backwards But Redeemed, Pastor Victoria shares a heartfelt message about discovering your true identity in Christ when earthly relationships, family, and even your own self-image have failed you. Many women carry wounds from rejection, abandonment, comparison, and unmet expectations, allowing those experiences to shape how they see themselves. But God never intended your identity to be rooted in your past, your pain, or the opinions of others.

Pastor Victoria dives into the truth that our Heavenly Father loves us with a perfect love that surpasses every earthly relationship. Even when family falls short, God remains faithful. Even when people walk away, He stays. Even when you feel unseen, He calls you His beloved daughter.

This episode is a reminder that your worth is not found in what you've been through but in who Christ says you are. As women of God, we are called to walk in confidence, freedom, and the security of being daughters of the King.

Join Pastor Victoria as she shares biblical truth, encouragement, and practical wisdom to help you break free from false identities and embrace the redemption, healing, and purpose found in Jesus Christ.

Key Topics:

•  Identity in Christ 
•  Healing from rejection and abandonment 
•  The Father's love 
•  Walking confidently as a daughter of God 
•  Breaking free from worldly labels 
•  Finding purpose through redemption 
•  Biblical womanhood and spiritual growth 

Backwards But Redeemed is a podcast where Pastor Victoria shares authentic testimonies, biblical encouragement, and practical truth for women seeking to walk in freedom, healing, and their God-given identity.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hello. Hey everyone. Welcome back to Backwards But Redeemed. I'm so thankful you're here with us today. Last episode, I shared a broad overview of my testimony and how God redeemed so many broken areas of my life. But today I want to slow down and talk about the moment that really changed everything for me emotionally and spiritually. The moment I found out who my biological father was. And I wanted to talk about not only what happened, but how rejection, identity wounds, and lies from the enemy can begin shaping us if we don't bring those wounds to God. You know, and and I've touched on it a little bit in the last episode. Parents, we've got to teach our children who their identity is in God. Because even as children, we have what we refer to in our house and around our church, body slams. And if they don't know who their identity is in God, even as little kids, the enemy is gonna start feeding them with lies. So I just want to start off with my story about the age of seven. And I could be wrong on the ages. Um this is just the time frame I remember this happening. Um we'll get into my memory and stuff. Those are later on years of um things that happened to cause my memory to be a little foggy. So when I was about seven year old, seven years old, um I honestly remember my parents having a heated discussion about us going to this church. And we had, like I said in the last episode, we had visited that church multiple times. They have gone there to sing and had aunts and uncles that went to that church, and I loved going to that church as a little girl. And but I just remember my mom was just I don't want to say putting up a fight, but there was some reason she didn't want to be there. Um but eventually, you know, she gave in. We started going to this church, um, and I was a little girl. Um, and at that time I wasn't thinking about identity or brokenness or any of those things um that I understand now as an adult. I was just living life, I was just being a kid. And after we started going to that church, I became friends with another little girl. We became really, really close. And when we would go out places, people would say, Oh, you two look like sisters. You two look like twins, and we would say yes and laugh. Um, we thought it was funny that everybody thought we looked like sisters and twins, and we would dress the same, we would go buy matching outfits and wear them. You know, that's a girl thing. Um, we like to do that from a young age. Um, but when people would ask us if we were sisters, we would just say yes and thought it was funny. Um we had no idea there was actual truth behind what people were truly seeing. Um we just thought we were being funny and we were just two little girls just having fun. Um hadn't experienced a whole lot of hurt up until that point. Um that was traumatizing, anyways, that we that I can remember. Um, and then like we took family vacations together, like her parents and my parents, we'd get in a car, we'd go to St. Louis, and I believe we went to the zoo together, we did all of these things together, and life for me, as I can remember in that moment seemed pretty perfect. Um, I had a little brother, you know. When you have little brothers, they can be annoying. But other than that, he's a pretty good little brother. Um, you know, and she had a little sister and a little brother, and and we all just would come together and just hang out, and we were going to church together and all the things. And I remember she was going to have a birthday party. I'm gonna move into the story of how we found out um her birthday's in December, and uh she was having a birthday party. It was on a Saturday, and I remember her riding the bus home with me um that Friday. She was gonna stay with us so her parents could get everything together, and for her birthday, and then we could just hang out. Um, and there was some older kids on the bus that went to church with us. Um and to be honest, for the life of me, I couldn't even tell you what their names were right now, but I can see their faces. Um, and we were, I'm sure, back there just being typical seven, eight, nine-year-old little girls doing whatever. Um, and um I remember one of the kids saying, you know, you guys are really sisters. And we laughed and said, No, we're not. That that's just something we tell people, we're not really sisters. Like, I know we look alike, but we're not sisters, and they're like, No, brother, you're sisters. And I was like, No, we're not, we're not sisters, and they were like, no, like last night we heard our parents talking, and or I just kind of remember being like, okay, and they're like, your mom, my mom, and her dad were boyfriend and girlfriend in high school, and they had you. I don't remember much else of that conversation. Um my dad, I remember saying, We got off the bus and we were just crying hysterically. But I do remember that was the first time I felt shocked and confused. Um, I'm sure there was hurt there, but I think the shock and confusion overwhelmed the hurt in the moment. Um, I remember my dad brought us in. Um her parents, I believe, came and got her. She went home. I remember a lot of phone calls going on in the background. Um, I I don't know what was said, but I just remember there being a lot of phone calls, and I remember I didn't hear my dad tell my mom what was going on, but I remember seeing her face. And it was almost like I could see as a little girl her shame fall upon her. Um, and so I will be honest, I would try to get through these segments without crying. Um, but I remember I've never seen that look on my mom. Um up until that point, my mom had always been confident, um just a confident woman um in who she was and her abilities to sing. My parents are amazing singers. Um, and so that was the first time I think I ever saw shame or guilt on my mom's face. Um and she didn't know how to handle it either, I don't believe. Um, but I do remember we kind of went on throughout the day, and that night we had this huge round table in our kitchen, and it seemed like eight people. Um, but we had this huge round table in our kitchen, and my parents said, hey, we want you to come in here and sit down. And so I go in there that night to sit down at the table, and I knew in that moment everything in my life was about to shift. Something inside of me, just from them telling me to come sit down at the table, shifted as a little girl. And suddenly I didn't feel normal anymore. Um, I felt very different. And I remember my dad starting the conversation, I love you. And um in that moment, just from him saying, I need you to know I love you, I knew that what those kids had told said on the bus, that there was truth in it. And immediately I remembered from that conversation. I know they told me everything, but all that kept replaying in my head, this man loves you, but the man who created you wanted nothing to do with it. And I was eight or nine years old at that time. And even though I was listening, I can remember sitting at that table thinking, I am not good enough for anyone to love. Even the man who created me here on earth didn't want me. And I remember going to her birthday party the next day, and I can still remember the feeling in my chest as a little girl of everyone knows now. Everyone knows that I know. And I felt like there was something wrong with me, and that I didn't belong there anymore. I didn't belong at that church, I didn't belong with my family, I didn't belong with my friends anymore because there was something wrong with me. My whole world changed in one night, and what I didn't realize then was that the enemy was already planting lies in my heart. He had already started the process of planting all the lies in my heart, you know, as children, we don't know always know how to process pain correctly. And even as adults, we don't always know how to process pain correctly. We don't have the maturity to separate truth from emotion. So instead of understanding the situation through God's eyes, I started internalizing it. I began believing those lies that I wasn't enough, that I must be unwanted. Something is wrong with me. And though those thoughts may seem small at first, but when they stay unhealed, they start shaping who you are and how you see yourself, and eventually they shape your relationship, your choices, and your identity. The enemy loves to use rejection to distort identity, and that is what he did with me for so long, and I didn't know how to combat it because I believed them. I started believing them at eight years old that I'm not enough, that I must be unwanted, that there's something wrong with me. I believe those lies at eight years old, and I don't know. I'm I can't say what my parents seen from their side of it, but I feel like they had to have seen the shift in me that because I believe up until that point, I was probably a pretty cocky, confident little girl. Um, I don't remember a lot now about my childhood. I do know some, I remember some things, but to know me, um, and because I don't know if anyone's ever watched the show Pollyanna. It's a little girl, a little blonde headed little girl who used to get in trouble and stuff. It's a good show. It's an old show. And my dad used to call me Pollyanna all the time. And so I would say that at some point in my life, up until this point, I was probably a little mischievous little girl who liked to get in trouble at times um and like to argue, which I still do. But it's it is but I know that after that night they had to see the shift in me because I just didn't feel worthy anymore. Um, because the enemy started having me to question my worth, and he can influence your decisions from there. Um, and from that point, I just started making really bad decisions, um, terrible decisions, to be honest. Um, but I do want to talk real quick about one scripture, and it's Psalms twenty-seven ten. Should have been there. And it's this even if my father and mother abandoned me, the Lord cares for me. And I had to, as I got older, not that my mom and dad abandoned me, but as a little girl, that's what that felt like. As a little girl, it felt like this truth came out, and I was just left to deal with it. And in that, it felt like I got abandoned. Like I was supposed to go on with life like it had always been. Like nothing changed after that talk. I'm not saying that's what my parents said, but that's how I felt as a little girl. And what I didn't understand as a little girl is that my identity was never supposed to come from people, it was supposed to come from God the whole time, and that's why it is so important for as we start teaching our children, our little girls and little boys, that their identity doesn't come from us, doesn't come from their parents, it comes from God. God created you to be who you are. Yes, we get to raise you and we get to influence you in ways, but your identity should not come from who your parents are. Your identity should come from God. But when you go unhealed, we often spend years trying to get people to fill places only God can heal. And I did that for so long in my life, and it affected every area of my life. As I got older, I started having relationships that I shouldn't have been in. Um the wounds followed me. I started searching for love and validation and unhealthy places. I held on to relationships I should have walked away from because rejection terrified me. Even me walking away from them was rejection to me. Because what if I walked away and they went and found someone else immediately? That was rejection to me. I accepted less than God's best because deep down I didn't believe I deserved better than what I had in the moment. You know, I'm not gonna dive deep into my early teens, preteens, but I started trying to find validation at nine, ten years old, eleven years old, and other men. Um and it led me down a path that I'm not proud of. But I am so grateful that even though in those moments I was making terrible decisions, God's hand was over me the entire time. And he was protecting me. I was in a very abusive relationship with someone, and to be honest, I shouldn't be setting here, I shouldn't be above ground. But God's hand the entire time, looking back now, was over me protecting me because he knew what he created me for, and he knew my true identity. I just didn't know it. And I felt like that's all I was worth was to be someone's be someone that someone could use to allow people just to use me and however they wanted to use me because I didn't deserve any better. And I know there's women listening right now who understand exactly what I'm talking about. Maybe your rejection looked different, maybe it was abandonment, maybe it was divorce, maybe it was abuse, maybe it was just neglect and church hurt. And I'm not a big fan of church hurt because it's really people hurt. People are the ones that hurt you, they just happen to be in a church building. It's not the church that hurts you, it's the people in the church building that hurts you. But somewhere along the way, the enemy convinced you that your wounds defined your worth. But I want to tell you, they don't define your worth, they don't define who you are, it's a part of your story, but it doesn't have to define who you are, and I allowed those wounds from a little girl for so long to define who I was, to define my bitterness. You know, I held on to so much bitterness, and it grew and grew and grew, and everyone around me was miserable. If you were within my vicinity, you were going to be miserable because I was miserable. I might have had a smile on my face and I might have been laughing on the outside, but on the inside I was dying. And one of the big biggest things God had to heal in me was my identity. He had to teach me I was not rejected by him ever, that I was actually chosen by him and loved, and that he seen me and worthy, not because of people, but because of him. Healing did not happen overnight with me. It was little by little, and God uprooting the lies I had believed for years. He had to take every little lie that the enemy had placed in me and pull it out and show me, no, you are worthy. You are worthy. I sent my son for you. That's how worthy you are. I sent my only son to die on a cross for you so you could spend eternity with me in glory. And so, and we're still digging things out, he's still uprooting things, he's still showing me things that I need to change. And so I want to encourage you with if you're willing to sit down with God and let him pull those things out, it's going to hurt because pulling out a deep root hurts and it will leave some empty spaces. But if you allow him To fill it with his love, it will grow into something better. You know, I carried all those wounds for so long. And I thought I had dealt with them until about two weeks ago. I'll just be real honest. Um, I'd forgiven my parents, not that any of them did anything wrong, but I'd forgiven them. Um and about two weeks ago, we were having a service at church, and this pastor was talking about unforgiveness. Um, why was the healing not happening? Why this or that? It was due to unforgiveness. And um God said, I know you've forgiven them, but there's the little girl needs to forgive them. And I was like, the little girl has forgiven them. What do you mean? And he's like, no, you the adult has forgiven them, but the little girl inside of you still needs to heal and forgive them. And I was like, okay, and he said, and it can't just be something you say to me and you forgive them. You need to let them know. And I I was like, okay, this is gonna be really weird. Like, what do you want me to do? Like, they probably don't even know that this little girl in me still hurts. Um, I didn't even know until you revealed it and pulled the scab off for me and let me feel it for a few minutes. Um, and so I reached out to them and it wasn't about me and it wasn't about them. It was about me being obedient to God and forgiving. But he had to show me that there was still a little area of me that needed some healing. I thought I was healed, I thought I'd forgiven, I thought I'd moved past all of this, and he said, there's still a little part that hurts, and I need you to heal that. And so I know there are many today who are carrying wounds from childhood too. Maybe there are moments in your life that still hurt when you think about them, but I want you to know something. God is able to heal the little girl inside of you too. He is able to restore your identity, and he is able to break the lies that the enemy told you, and he is able to redeem what pain tried to destroy. Hear that again. He is able to redeem what pain and the enemy tried to destroy. And that took me a long time to understand that he could take all that pain and redeem it all. He could take all that pain and he could take all those lies and restore your identity and who you really are. And he's still working on me. I am not up here perfect, by no means third day, so I'm like, what in the world is going on? But my story matters, is what he told me. It's going to reach someone and it's going to touch a life that needs to be touched, who maybe doesn't know that I'm still a redeemer. And he is such an amazing redeemer, and he's such a good daddy, he's the best daddy you could ever ask for. You know, our parents on earth, they're humans, they live in flesh body. Sometimes the flesh wins out, but we can't look at God and compare him to our earthly parents because he's the best daddy there ever was. You may had an amazing daddy on earth, and if you did great. Now multiply that times a hundred. That's what God is. He is always going to provide, he is always going to show up, and he never leaves you. It may feel like he's distant, but it's usually not him, it's us. It's us that is being distant from him. He's just waiting for you to come running home like the prodigal son. Once you turn around and come back, he will run to you. He never shuts the door. The door's open. He's looking for you to come home. He's just waiting for you to get out of the pig pen and start walking back. And you don't need a speech, and you don't need any of those things. You just need to turn around and say, I love you and come back. So I just want to encourage you with that today. I hope that that part of my story helps some that maybe have dealt with childhood hurts and trauma. Now I didn't go deep into it, and I'm not because I'm not going to give the enemy glory. Because all of all throughout that story, God was in it. I might not have seen it in the moment, but God kept me protected all throughout that story. So I do want to thank you guys so much for listening today to this episode of Backwards But Redeemed. Next episode, we're going to talk about how rejection and identity wounds can affect relationships and why so many women end up searching for love in broken places. If this episode encouraged you, share it with someone who may need it. And remember, your past may explain you, but it does not define you. I love you guys, and I will see you next time.