From riches to rags. From someone to no one. From family to isolation.

Great tumultuous events turn our lives upside down. They can shake us to the very core of our being, causing us to question who we are, what is the point of it all?

Is our identity rooted in what has been done to us, and our purpose stolen by those who hurt us?

Even if nothing earth-shattering happens, we still want to know ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Why am I here?’ Am I a nothingness on the wheels of time, an accident of existence?

Imagine something so great it could lift you out of the deepest trauma, or give what seems like the least significant life (a slave)
a sense of purpose? Imagine something so rich and powerful that you can’t measure it, something that shifts your identity and purpose in life completely.

Patrick, who had lost so much, found that when he looked to God his identity was no longer wrapped up in the harm done to him, or the things he had lost— instead he found who he was truly meant to be. He found that his purpose in life wasn’t stolen from him, but that he now had a purpose far beyond anything else.

“I was like a stone lying deep in the mud. Then he who is powerful came and in his mercy pulled me out, and lifted me up and placed me on the very top of the wall. That is why I must shout aloud in return to the Lord for such great good deeds of his, here and now and forever, which the human mind cannot measure.” Quote from Patrick’s Confessio

That’s what happened to Patrick over 1,500 years ago, and Jesus Christ has been doing that for people in Ireland and across the world ever since.

We live at a time when many are struggling to know who they are and why they are here. We have sought to anchor our sense of self to jobs, relationships, ambitions, entertainment, social media profiles, sexuality and more—but have found them fragile and unfulfilling.

And yet like Patrick when we turn to the life- giving, living waters of Jesus Christ, we find him who says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full”

(John 10:10)

The purpose of life and the secret of identity isn’t found in what we do, it’s in Who we know.