Whodunit Wednesday: Who am I?

The past few years Shirley has been working on discovery her ancestry. This began with looking for her older sister whom she had only really met once in her life. We found her online, but too late for Shirley to ever talk to her. In the meantime, Shirley has discovered even more about her mother’s side of the family (they go all the way back to the Salem witch trials), the family of her previously unknown sister’s daughter, and some cousins from her father’s side. 

I know that my father in the past had a genealogy done, although he has never seen it. I also remembers several conversations with my mom about her ancestry. I know that I comes from a lot of German and Prussian background. But might there be some other interesting discoveries? When we named Stephan, we became aware for the first time that there was another - much better known - Stefan (with an “f” instead of “ph”) Raab. Could there be actual links somewhere? 

As a matter of fact, I know that there are other Raabs that we are not related to. Back when we used to send actual paper newsletter and the beginning of email newsletters, I received messages strongly asking me to stop sending emails to someone who had the Raab name but was not related. And if you google my name, you will most likely first come up with a well-known journalist - who is not related. 

Last night we spent time with a young couple from the church, sharing stories about our lives and looking at pictures. We saw their “old” pictures (they are just 20 and 21 years old) and then we looked at pictures when we were younger. The usual exclamation was, “That’s you?!” Looking at a picture and then at the real person, you recognize some of the characteristics, even if the hair has changed. 

But are we simply our DNA? Is that who we are? Of course our genes have influenced us, just as the environments we grew up in. But is that the totality of who we are? Ever since becoming a Christian I have seen those elements as the building blocks that God has used throughout my life to make me who I am. I am a child of the King. I am a sinner who has been and is being made holy, day by day. Can you imagine someone being holy? That’s me. I am a saint. Not that I do everything right, of course. But God sees who I am and who He is making me to be, every new day that He gives. 

Who are you? 

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.  Ephesians 2:19-22