Last week I went to see Inside Out 2 (it was an odd day haha). For those who are unfamiliar, the first installment of the movie dealt with the emotions inside the head of a little girl (Riley) who moved across the country with her parents. Inside Out 2 deals with the same girl who is now entering into puberty (and the emotions which follow). I loved Inside Out, and though I enjoyed the sequel, I did not find it quite as good. However, this is not a movie review, this is to point out that one of the main points of the movie deals with the protagonist’s sense of self.
The “main” emotion, Joy, begins the film by explaining that she takes all the memories which she doesn’t want to deal with, and sends them “to the back of the brain” (i.e. repressed). This isn’t a spoiler, but she soon discovers that she has sent a lot more memories than she remembered, and it is causing Riley to question her sense of self when the new emotion (anxiety) arrives after the puberty alarm sounds (not a pun, an actual alarm in the movie).
We are told that we are loved by God, and we are told about the great mercy which God offers us, but at times we tend to (like the character Riley) move memories to the back of our minds. These typically are not happy memories, and I would wager often involve times what we have done something which we should not have. The problem with moving all these memories to the back of our mind is that if we are not careful we may start to think that God will only love a certain version of ourselves. Teenagers deal with this all the time. During those formative years, they seek to determine who they are in the world, and this can be influenced by how others perceive them. The mentality of basing our worth and our identity on what other people think is a slippery slope in the world and its dangerous in our spiritual life.
God Loves us. We don’t earn it, and we certainly do not deserve it, but the God who created the whole cosmos loves us. Our identity and our sense of self begins with who we are in the eyes of God. We may stumble at times, we may have moments when it seems like anger, sadness, anxiety, embarrassment are controlling our lives, but we ought not let our feelings get in the way of our relationship with the Divine. We do not need to hide anything from God.