Could this be a “Quarter Life Crisis”?
How turning 25 turned my faith on fire and realigned my identity back to Christ
By Shannan Rose Murray - October 22, 2024
D
earest reader,
Have you ever been asked on your birthday, “So, how does it feel to be (insert your age)?” Every year I am asked this at least once by someone and my response is always the same - “24 feels exactly the same as 23” or “I feel exactly the same.”
Something happened when I turned 25 though, something changed.
I really didn’t feel any different initially and I knew that 25 was going to be a big year for me and my husband. I turned 25 in May and we got married in June - that was a big change and we obviously expected to feel different, older maybe, or more mature, once we got married. I was so excited to turn 25 - it felt like a big year!
Then I turned 25 and this unexpected dread and fear came over me. Is 25 old? Am I behind? Am I making the right career choices and financial decisions? Should we be going out more/am I boring? Why don’t I have as many friends as I used to? Are those WRINKLES around my eyes?! We should travel as much as we can before we have kids right?
There were also these other changes that I started to feel after I turned 25 that I wasn’t expecting.
My body felt different - the weight was being distributed differently and I started having acne again. I was responding to foods differently and I wasn’t sleeping as well, making me feel fatigued a lot more. My friendships were shifting and my anxiety was back at an all time high. I didn’t really know how to describe my style and didn’t know if the way I was decorating our home was really “me”.
In the 25th year of my life, I realized I was struggling with my identity. Who am I really? How am I spending my time? What do I stand for? Who am I becoming and who do I want to be? Does my work really matter?
“Is this my quarter-life crisis?” I remember thinking to myself. I thought those were just made up dramatic plot points in books and movies to keep people interested as characters transitioned into adulthood.
It did feel real though because suddenly, I felt like I had lost my footing and wasn’t on solid ground.
Just when I thought I had things figured out, the floor fell out from under me and I felt like I knew nothing, was good at nothing, wasn’t sure of anything.
In my uncertainty, the enemy of my soul had crept in and trapped me in my fear convincing me that I didn’t know who I was anymore, that I couldn’t be certain of anything.
Have you ever fallen prey to the enemy of your soul?
As women, we are constantly told who we are supposed to be, what we’re supposed to look like, how much money we should be making, how many followers we're supposed to have, and so on. When there’s so many voices around us, “guiding” us but more often leading us astray, how could we not feel uncertain?
What you and I can be 100% certain of is that our identity rests in Christ and in Christ alone.
Acknowledge that the Lord is God. He made us and we are his - his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Psalm 100:3 (CSB)
When you find yourself struggling with your identity, of course everything feels like it's falling apart! Your identity is the foundation of your life!
When studying up on this, I found some advice that I found to be really beautiful from Revive Our Hearts, a ministry carried out by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth to help women thrive in Christ. It said this, “When you see that your value in life isn’t “who you are” but rather “whose you are,” then you will latch onto the truth that will carry you your entire life and give you purpose: your identity in Christ will never shift or change.”
Turning 25 seemed to introduce so many shifts and changes in my life, but how reassuring it is to know that even if everything around me is different and I feel out of control, that’s because I’m not in control. My life is my own, but it really isn't. My life is His, I am His because I was created by Him and nothing and no one can change that.
Only the one who created me has the right to name me and He has called me Daughter, Child of God.
I am not a success because I worked hard and got the promotion. I am not unfit to be a good wife or friend because Instagram is telling me so. I am not a burden because of my anxious thoughts and feelings.
I am a child of God because he has called me one by name.
See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children - and we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him. Dear friends, we are God’s children now…
1 John 3:1-2 (CSB)
If you’ve been feeling any of these things, dear reader I hope you feel encouraged and seen by this today and can rest in these Truths. You are His. You are chosen, loved, and guarded by Christ.
Yours truly,
