My True Name
Written by: Sarah Pittmann
Have you ever felt less than what you wanted to feel? Broken, worthless, unwanted, less-than, scum, unloved? That was where I found myself in my late 20s. This is not how I had intended or expected life to go. I had tried to make all the right choices along the way, tried to be better than the past I came from. For a time, I had been the eternal optimist, happy, always a smile on my face. But who was this now looking back in the mirror at me? This reflection looked jaded, bitter, hopeless, quick to lash out with anger, depressed and full of darkness, full of pain and hurt inflicted by others … but made to think it was me who was the problem.
I couldn’t tell what was right and wrong anymore. Too many messages received by a few individuals, either verbal or non-verbal, overwrote my identity. I had not fully become whole, healthy, and strong. I made poor choices. I was hurt and wronged along the way, but I let a few voices have power over my identity and life. I did not know better. I had lost my way and no longer had an anchor. I didn’t know what voices to let in and what voices to reject. This is my story.
I came from a broken past. I had a very controlling father who was abusive to my mom. He skewed our view of things claiming to be the only true Christian, yet acting opposite to what the Bible taught, taking verses out of context to authorize his actions. BUT GOD interjected a good foundation. Living in a remote location, my Mom homeschooled us three girls, including teaching us to read the Bible, opening to us the whole Bible and not just part of it. I praise the Lord for that in our early years. The word of God was written onto mine and my sister’s hearts, telling us we were loved and in need of salvation. We asked God into our hearts as little girls. The foundation was poured for the house that was me. However, my identity was not secure. I did not understand the true love of God the Father, as my earthly father did not show love. In fact, he tried to play god by changing my name in an attempt to change my identity. He did not love or accept me for who I was. He tried to control me and change me into his vision of a perfect child. Maybe it was because they had expected a boy, and he got me instead; maybe it was simply because of the way I was uniquely me; but whatever the reason, he delivered the message that I was wrong for being who I was. I was an exuberant girl who wore her emotions on her sleeve and delighted in the joy of life and discovery. But that didn’t fit the mold of a passive, quiet and submissive little girl that he had in his mind. So, he tried to crush my character, attempting to beat back the parts of me that made me who I was. However, despite his constant tear downs I was unable to put on a mask, nor hide who I really was, the way my sisters were able to. I was honest to a fault. I was all me, up front, all the time. When I was almost 5 years old, my dad found out that my middle name, Nicole, meant “victory of the people”, and he decided that changing my name would change who I was and solve the problem of controlling me. Well, what better name than Abigail, which means “father’s joy” to give the power to him to gain victory over my character and identity. My Mom was so sweet though, she dressed it up and made it a fun thing; presenting it to me as meaning “Daddy’s girl” since I was the tomboy and always out helping dad with chores (though that was not always by choice), and it was a ‘gift’ to me on my 5th birthday. But when man tries to play God it only ends in destruction. Later in life, for fear of being beat down for who I really was, I would unintentionally allow others to rewrite my identity as a matter of survival.
My mom divorced my dad when I was 9 years old. We were no longer secluded and living out in the middle of nowhere. We started public school, went to church, and lived in neighborhoods. For a time, I was a good church girl; my faith and confidence started to grow, and I was happy. However, I was pretty naïve and lots of messages of who I should be flew at me from all directions. The house of me had a frame, but no walls yet, so everything that tried to blow in, got in. I tried to block out certain things I knew were wrong, but sooner or later, with no walls, it all got in. I found myself taking up residence (or “making friends”) with the ways of the world and compromising my morals. BUT GOD protected me along the way from many things amid my poor decisions through high school. When I got married a year later, I changed my middle name back to Nicole, so that my name was no longer connected to my birth father.
Married young and in college, the pull of God along with the pull of the world were too much. Something had to give. As Jesus says, you cannot serve two masters. Sadly, I chose the world. I discovered I had the power to ignite lust in others and that brought me attention and validation. But I was deceived. I wasn’t gaining power, I was walking into bondage, and I was losing my identity by being everything to everyone. Furthermore, without being well rooted in God’s word and God’s truth, all religions and spiritualisms started to sound alike. But looking back I can tell you with all certainty that is a lie of the enemy! In my darkness, I couldn’t see it then. I just kept sinking into the miry pit, little by little, not realizing I was sliding until it was too late. I couldn’t find a way out.
My husband, himself a Christian by faith but hurt by the church, had run as far as he could in living the ways of the world. My fractured self willingly followed him farther into darkness. Our marriage was rough, and many times we almost didn’t make it. Over the years, my husband constantly poked at me with his opinionated definitions of who I was. Though he would say he was joking, his words started to ring true in my ears. His video games held precedence over me. And three words, ‘I don’t care’, were his jaded response to almost anything I tried to talk to him about. So, the messages I received told me I was worthless, unwanted, and unloved. And when you don’t know who you are, if you hear something long enough, you start to believe you are those things. They slowly became my identity.
There were a few years we both had decent jobs, were living well, and our marriage was pretty good with very few fights. Yet depression kept trying to overwhelm me. You see … God was not part of our equation at that time. It didn’t matter if times were good or times were bad. I had a gaping hole inside of me that nothing in this world could fill. I prayed occasionally, feeling an echo of what I once knew in God: wholeness. But my pride and fear would not let me return. Pride in that I would have to humble myself and acknowledge I made wrong choices in life, walked down the wrong path, and then fear in what others around me would think of me: I was not a good Christian girl anymore; I didn’t keep company with anyone who was; and I didn’t want to be mocked.
BUT GOD called me back to Himself. The bottom dropped out from underneath us financially; our marriage deteriorated; we had a 1 ½ year old, sweet little boy; and I was pregnant with our little girl. I was in the deepest, darkest pit imaginable: full of despair, depression, anxiety, and hopelessness. The Psalmist calls it, ‘a miry pit’. But it was this very pit that led me to try church again after so many years. I wanted my little boy to know how to be saved and be able to go to heaven. At that point I hadn’t a clue how to even start telling him about God. So, this fear, along with finding some playmates for him, and my own desperation, brought me to Blue Oaks Baptist Church in Rocklin, CA. I went by myself. My husband was on the road trucking and he wouldn’t have come anyway. I struggled to smile as I greeted new people and dropped my little boy off in the kid’s area. Sitting down by myself in one of the back rows, I felt empty, like a dried-out husk: fragile, brittle, and ready to crumble at any second. I didn’t know if I would find an old hypocritical message of why their form of Christianity was the best, or if there was going to be something real there to find. We sang some songs and then the pastor started to preach. And GOD started to pluck my heart strings; to speak to my inner being; to see me …a droplet of cool, living water to my parched soul. 
Tears streamed down my face as the Pastor’s words spoke directly to me. I knew the only safe place for my shattered self was in God’s hands. I kept going back. I found a hope and reason to keep on living. I began to grow strong again.
We moved to Texas about this time, leaving behind most of our belongings because we could only afford a small trailer. I didn’t want to lose what I had so recently found, so my top priority was finding another church with authentic Christians, preaching and living the truth of God’s word. After a quick Google search, I decided to try a nearby church that sounded good by their website. I was 8 ½ months pregnant, with a toddler at my side, walking in to Hulen Street Church in Fort Worth, TX, while my husband was either working or sleeping, I’m not sure which. But when the sermon was almost identical to the one I had just heard back in California, I knew it was the right church. I didn’t need to shop around. Having no family or friends in the area, I needed to get to know people fast. I was about to have a baby! I joined the women’s bible study starting a few days later. By mid-week I had a support group. Those ladies loved me and my family so well. They took care of us and donated to us most of what we had lost in our move. They acted out the hands and feet of Jesus. I’m so grateful for those ladies at Hulen Street who showed me how to live my faith 24/7, and not just on weekends. Bible study dispelled my misconceptions about God and the Bible and my small ideas of what it meant to be a Christian. If you’re not active in a group bible study, I strongly suggest you find one!! It was water to my soul and strength to my bones. I fell in love with Jesus. My heart filled with joy. Peace reigned in my mind and emotions. I learned I was free to not sin. God also taught me what a Father’s love really is. I became a daughter for the first time in my life. My true identity IS daughter of the Most High King.
My husband started to come to church for a little bit, then I think the intimacy scared him. He threw all his walls back up and added a few more. He pushed back hard against God. He shut out the church again … and shut me out too. Battle lines were drawn, and we used words as weapons, hurling them at each other as one hurls a spear. Then the closer I drew to God, the more peace I seemed to gain, the angrier it made him. Spiritual warfare ran rampant in our house. The verbal and emotional hurt from my husband that had ebbed and flowed throughout our marriage grew intense and manifested physically on one occasion. BUT GOD strengthened me and matured me through all this. God showed me that it wasn’t for me to change my husband, but for me to let GOD work on me and trust that God had my husband in His hands too. God taught me that no matter what my husband or others said to me, it was for me to be obedient to the Holy Spirit and practice self-control rather than continuing to act and react poorly. And instead of seeking my worth in my husband now, I learned to find my worth and identity in Christ Jesus, my first love and true Bridegroom.
I remember vividly when God revealed to me with a shocking revelation that the hardship in our marriage was more than a rough marriage … it was abuse. God loves us SO VERY MUCH and this is not what He wants for His daughters or His sons. I had previously refused even the thought of divorce because I didn’t want a broken family like I had come out of. BUT GOD showed me that the stain of abuse is worse than the stain of divorce. We had to get ourselves right before we could get our marriage right. I knew I had to put our marriage on the line, stand up against the abuse, and say, ‘no more’. To do so, was terrifying! And it went against all my hopes, dreams and expectations. But with much prayer, support of a godly mentor and friend, and counsel with a church elder, we came up with a plan. The moment I stood and spoke, the Holy Spirit calmed me, and helped me speak. I was given an extra measure of faith that fateful night in October 2017. I perceived in my spirit that the great I AM was standing behind me, fighting the spiritual battle above our heads. Then, it was like the darkness disappeared from my husband’s eyes! GOD Himself fought for me, fought for my husband, fought for us. God gave us another chance. “Come behold the works of the LORD, Who has made desolations in the earth. HE makes wars to cease to the end of the earth; HE breaks the bow and shatters the spear; HE burns the chariot in the fire. HE says, ‘Be still and know that I am GOD.’” (Psalm 46:8-10a)
The abuse subsided for almost 3 years, and it looked like things were going in the right direction. We both appeared to be under construction for remodeling, so it wasn’t surprising that there were several sharp nails lying around causing damage. I leaned into the pain because that is where Jesus meets us and heals us. I availed myself to the Holy Spirit to do the hard internal work. There were many ups and downs and viciously hard struggles in the remodeling process. At times I was silent before the shearers, as Jesus was, letting God fight the battle, because reconciliation was the goal, and it didn’t matter who was right or wrong in the moment. I learned to trust God completely with what mattered most to me. The LORD is good and did many miracles during this time, which I would have missed if they were not in such stark contrast to how bad things had been. So, I chose to love, believing all things, hoping all things and enduring all things (1 Cor. 13:7) with hope for a renewed marriage. BUT GOD, in His perfect timing, revealed the truth, that for my husband, it had only been an outward modification instead of an internal transformation. In 2020, the pressure cooker of COVID and political turmoil provided the trial of testing that would prove the contents of our hearts. Stuck at home, not able to escape or pretend or ignore the red flags anymore, I started praying a prayer that summer that God would expose everything to the Light of His Truth. And that fall, the abuse came back with a vengeance. God indeed revealed much truth!
At first, I was devastated because the healing and outcome after God’s miracle in 2017 was not what I had pictured, and I wrestled with God as to why He would do the miracle that gave us another chance only for things to end up back where they were. BUT GOD has so much more in store than what my finite mind can comprehend. God had purpose in those 3 years. “Praise the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war.” (Ps. 144:1) God prepared me during that time to trust Christ alone in trauma and in tragedy. My sister, who was one of my best friends, who was two years older than me, was killed in a tragic car accident in June 2018. And by the good work of Christ in me since 2017, the year of my surrender, I was able to say, “The LORD gives and the LORD takes away, blessed be the name of the LORD.” (Job 1:21) God showed me that He does indeed work all things for good for those who love Him, even the death of my sister, for our good and His glory. (Romans 8:28) I saw miracles happen. We got to share Christ with over 200 people because she died, and her ex-husband opened up to the idea of Christ and finally stepped up to be a good dad to their son because she died. God is good even when it’s not in the way that we would plan it out. Then, as the year turned the corner, I had a hard time letting go of 2018 because it felt like I was leaving my sister behind, BUT GOD brought me the verse Psalm 46:5 on New Year’s Eve that says, “God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God shall help her, just at the break of dawn.” So, I woke up early and met God at sunrise on the first morning of 2019, and God delivered me and filled me with peace so that I was able to move forward. His grace is sufficient for me. (2 Cor. 12:9) God helped me, just at the break of dawn! Then, in the three months prior to the COVID shut down, God repositioned us out of our apartment and into a house, with a backyard; God increased and stabilized our finances; and God gave us a dog. God knew what was coming and knew that we needed these things to survive. I am grateful for the 3 years and now see God’s purpose in it.
When the abuse came back in the fall of 2020, I was able to recognize it for what it was. God had strengthened me and matured me so that I could finally understand what boundaries were and what they weren’t. I was able to start setting small boundaries in healthy ways. As things got worse, I increased my boundaries. Then my husband told me I didn’t deserve respect. There was a time I would have believed that, but not anymore. Now it rightly triggered a more drastic boundary, in-house separation. As I held my boundaries, he tried all sorts of tactics to regain control: he swung from being atrocious to depressed to playing the spiritual card again, all within 48 hours. But I was no longer swayed by his antics. The house of me was now built by the LORD! 
A few days before Christmas God woke me up early, reminding me of His help at dawn after my sister died, so I opened the curtains on our big front window and I watched the dawning light, as our marriage died. “God will help her, just at the break of dawn.” (Psalm 46:5) God granted me peace and I knew God was with me as I walked through the fire. In fact, that’s the word God gave me for the next year. Fire. BUT GOD gave it to me with a promise. Isaiah 43 verse 2: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.” So, I clung to God’s promise and held on for the ride! God gave me the courage to stand, the strength to withstand, and guided each next step. I was no longer silent but brought the matter into the light. I obeyed the words of Jesus, recorded in Matthew 18, pointing out my husband’s sin against me to him alone, then when he didn’t listen but worsened, brought a few others, and when he still did not listen or improve, brought the matter to the church. I am so grateful for the brave brothers in Christ who were bold enough to live out the gospel and confront him. When he still refused to listen, as Jesus commanded, he is to be treated like an unbeliever. And 1 Corinthians 7 says that if an unbeliever is unwilling to stay, let them go. By his abuse towards me he expressed his unwillingness to live with me as husband. It was at this time that God unbound me. It was a weird feeling, there was this moment that was very distinct when God emotionally separated me from him, and I felt it internally. It was still a few weeks more before he moved out. I had to confront him again and draw the next boundary line that he would need to move out for a time of full separation, but when he threatened me and things got scary, I filed for divorce, the ultimate boundary. I underwent a physical surgery, neurosurgery on my C7 nerve root, which left me completely helpless and at the mercy of God and others, while at the same time I was going through this relational surgery of unbinding our marriage and a spiritual surgery of the heart where God removed the final thorns lodged in my heart and identity. It has not been an easy road, BUT GOD used the fire to clear the brambles, free me from bondage and provide the nutrients for new and healthy growth. On the other side of it all, I can testify that God is faithful, a promise keeper, answers prayers and is Jehovah-jireh, my Provider, who supplies all my needs, more than I could ever ask or imagine. The kids and I now live in a house filled with peace, and though the transition and healing process is hard, and daily I must remind myself that in Christ I am no longer a victim but a victor, I can trust in Christ alone to complete the good work that He has started.
Deuteronomy 26:8a says “The LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand…” Egypt represents Israel’s slavery or bondage. The bondage the LORD delivered me from included: fear, lack of self-worth, an abusive marriage, chains from childhood, selfishness, lustful desires, anxiety, anger, depression, covetousness, worry, and lesser gods like the opinions of other people. My earthly father may have tried to shape me and mold me, BUT GOD, my Heavenly Father, designed me and told me who I truly am! My earthly husband may have tried to tear me down, BUT CHRIST, my Heavenly Husband, generously lifted me up! Now I praise God on High! His praise will ever be on my lips, for in HIM is my identity, and in HIM my worth is found. In Christ alone am I secure and have all I need.
A fire burns inside me these days, full of passion for the Lord and the hurting and broken people who need Him like I need Him. I am lit up with His light and truth. My old self wouldn’t recognize the me of today. I’ve got both hands raised in church and I have a date with the King of all creation every morning. GOD healed my broken heart and brought me into my true identity. God created me uniquely me and I belong to HIM! I’m a vibrant mess. Some might think I’m a little over the top in love with Jesus. But if you knew the depths of the darkness which He saved me from, you would understand the tenacity of my worship and the fervency with which I tell others.
I found the real deal. I have seen too much of God’s work in the little puzzle pieces of my life, as well as the big miracles, to deny that He alone is God. Following Jesus may not be easy, but it’s worth it! If you haven’t asked Christ Jesus to be your Lord and Savior, I invite you to take a chance. Come to the table. Eat and drink from the living bread and water that can make you hunger and thirst no more. Don’t be like the young me who only ate from His table once or twice a week, for you will still hunger and thirst as I did and soon search for something else. But nothing else satisfies. Eat three square meals a day (or more!) from His banquet. Let Him permeate your whole being and your whole life. Then you will not hunger or thirst, even when you’re in a dry and dusty land. Jesus is everything! He died for your sins, so you don’t have to. He rose again and is now sitting at the right hand of God, King of all. Confess that you are a sinner, that you need Him, because we all do. Invite Him to come into your life. Get to know Him personally because He cares for you. He understands everything about you. You don’t have to put on a front or worry about your reputation with Him. God loves you more than you can imagine! You don’t have to get it together or clean up your life before you come to Him. Just come. It might feel wild and crazy, if you’re anything like me, but it’s so freeing and the joy and peace is indescribably wonderful! Take the leap!
My identity now: I am healed, I am whole, I am loved, I belong, I am wanted, I am cherished, I am desired, I am full of joy, I have peace, I have purpose, I am strong, I am secure, I am protected, I am comforted, I am satisfied, I am known, and I am a daughter and a wife to the King on High. I invite you to make these your identity too, through faith in Jesus Christ alone. God restored my identity; He can restore yours. Nothing is impossible with GOD. (Matthew 19:26)
