Stories of transformation.
Real journeys from people who learned to hear God’s voice and step into the identity He gave them. Read their words. Find yourself in them. Then share your own.
Every story is different. The freedom is the same.
These testimonies were shared with permission by people walking the identity journey through books, courses, experiences, and listening prayer. Search for a word, or filter by what you’re walking through right now.
Tell us your journey of transformation.
If God has met you in this work, your story could be the one someone else needs to read. There’s no pressure and no timeline — share as much or as little as you’d like.
You already have what it takes.
The same God who is writing these stories is writing yours. Take the next step and discover who He says you are.
Share your story →Dream Chaser
“For 40 years, I had confused the voice of shame for the voice of God. I had actually flipped who God and Satan were.”
“I was a dreamer from the beginning. But somewhere in church I started hearing a voice I thought was God, and it was the voice of shame. Sin, then punishment. He loved some future better version of me, not me. Then I heard that God is not the accuser — Satan is. For forty years I had it flipped. I wrote down every terrible name I had called myself, and Jesus said, ‘Give it to me.’ I closed my eyes and saw Him take the list, and it was gone. Then I asked Him what He calls me. The dreams weren’t dead. They were waiting for the real me.”
Justin Speaker
Sharing Jesus in the darkest places
“This ‘Spidey Sense’ is a God-given ability to seek the darkness out and stop it before it claims another innocent life.”
“I’ve been a police officer for seven years, working one of the most violent parts of my city. My commanders kept asking how I get so many guns and drugs off the street, and I usually said the same thing: I don’t know, a Spidey Sense, I guess. Then I started asking God what it actually was. It is a God-given ability to find the darkness and stop it before it claims another innocent life. I train rookies every year, and when they ask how I knew, I give them the lawful reason and then I tell them the rest. I pray before every shift: teach me what you have for me today, and show me who to bless.”
Zach Police officer
Daughter of Zion, Fire Walker
“Yesterday my husband shared that he is not leaving, and he is recommitting to our marriage — having seen a miracle happen in me.”
“Shortly after I came home from Catalyst, my husband of thirty-eight years told me he was leaving. Shock, grief and fear hit hard. And then, sitting next to him, the Lord whispered: lean in to your husband. See him and love him, as you have been unable to love him for a very long time. It has been an intense four weeks of crying out before the Lord, seeking His face, and loving as the Lord said to love — out of His perfect love and out of the depth of pain. Yesterday my husband told me he is not leaving. He is recommitting to our marriage, having seen a miracle happen in me. And the good news is that God is not yet done.”
Molly
Mathetria Pitcher
“He said, I had to break you to remake you. I never made you to be a vase. I made you to be a pitcher.”
“About ten years ago I saw myself as a cracked crystal vase in the Lord’s hands, and I would not let go. He asked, do you trust me? Then He said, let go. I watched His hands open and drop me, and I fell a long way in the dark before I hit the floor and shattered so hard there was only glass dust. I was down there with bleeding hands and knees, sweeping up the glass dust, crying, I trusted you — and then a warm wind came, the dust rose with flecks of gold in it like dust dancing in a sunbeam, and it formed a clay pitcher. He said, I had to break you to remake you. I never made you to be a vase. Now I ask students what Love calls them.”
Cammie Educator
Hope Wielder
“I used to think that my identity in Christ was a little theological box. I’m God’s daughter. What the world says about me doesn’t matter. Check.”
“I used to think my identity in Christ was a little theological box. I’m God’s daughter, what the world says about me doesn’t matter, check. Now I understand that He calls me by name, and that the way I show up in the world is His gift to me and through me. I am an author and a speaker, a mom of three teenage boys, a wife, a friend to many. But if any of those things fail or fade away, I am still God’s Word Warrior, Hope Wielder, Mouthpiece of Comfort. I am no longer weighed down by anxiety, no longer afraid I have to convince anyone that God’s voice is real. I have taught this to women in my church, spoken to over eight hundred high school students, and had conversations with my husband and my three sons I never thought I could.”
Becky Author and speaker
Playful, Wise, Hope-Bearer, Beauty Connector
“He beckons. And I am breaking free from doing what I have done to be ‘enough,’ to do that which I was made to do.”
“I learned young to avoid disapproval at all costs, and my false identities — performance, responsibility — have fed the system well. I have been at a health insurance company for twenty-three years, and lately the job has left me emotionally bankrupt. So sooner than we had planned, at sixty, I am retiring at the end of this year. What God has taught me led me to this place, and I am stepping into the identity He confirmed in me: connecting with women, healing through art, sharing what the Lord taught me in the painful years. He beckons. I am breaking free from doing what I have done to be enough, to do that which I was made to do. It is beautiful and I feel alive.”
Gwen Retiring from insurance this year
A protector in the image of God
“I specifically felt Him say, ‘You acted in exactly the way I created you to act.’”
“We had fostered for two and a half years when a call came close to midnight asking if we had room for an eight-month-old girl. As I fed her and rocked her back to sleep a thought hit me, one I am now confident was God speaking to her, and I whispered it as I laid her down: whatever strength I have, however that looks, it’s yours. At a custody hearing the judge ruled we would keep her, and then, as we walked out of the courthouse, the decision was overturned. Her family began fighting right there. My wife held her and stepped aside, and I stepped in between. Driving home I asked God if I had been wrong to step in. He answered with the gentleness only the Father offers: you acted in exactly the way I created you to act. My strength, it turns out, was the willingness to let go.”
Adam Twenty years in public safety
Brave-hearted Restorer, Rebuilder
“Yes, it’s late in the day. But I hear Him say, ‘Come on.’”
“For most of my life I have lived in the lie that I am not enough, and I am sixty-eight. I grew up in a very loving, supportive, Christ-centered home, so I could never understand where the insecurity came from, but it kept me bound. The name God has given me is Brave-hearted Restorer, Rebuilder, and when I heard that from Him I knew immediately that this is who I have always been. I am the director of a nonprofit that connects the disconnected through sharing a meal, conversation and artistic expression. And I am always given a broken-down building or room to rebuild and restore, which always coincides with the lives and relationships we are called to restore. Yes, it’s late in the day. But I hear Him say, come on.”
Marsha Nonprofit director
Creative, Compassionate Communicator of Truth
“Failure is just a form of painful learning.”
“I have been in vocational ministry most of my life — associate pastor, then military chaplain until I retired, then federal prison chaplain. I loved Jesus and I really wanted to serve Him, and yet my life was characterized by so much disappointment and failure. Those failures became the roots of my false identities: I’m worthless, I’m alone, I’m powerless, my past defines me, God is disappointed with me. About six months ago a friend sent me a podcast. I watched hundreds of them and read Living Fearless five times. Over time I learned who God says I am, and I am learning the truth that failure is just a form of painful learning. This month our fellowship is going into a community once set apart for leprosy patients, to lead about two hundred men, women and children through learning their true identities.”
Joseph Chaplain, retired
White Pawn
“Information doesn’t equate to transformation.”
“I have a degree in biblical theology. I started a church and a campus ministry overseas. Reading theology books was my hobby. And for most of my thirty-seven years as a Christian I planned and strategized in my own strength, frustrated that I never saw the power of God in my life or around me. Information doesn’t equate to transformation. Then one day I was at work alone in the filter press area, where alarms and equipment go off every twenty or thirty minutes, and I asked Him who He says I am. I saw a white pawn on a chessboard. I laughed out loud and said, a white pawn? Why not a rook or a knight, something a bit cooler? Then I found out why. Pawns move first. They move one space at a time. They cannot move backward. Their purpose is to serve and protect the King. And when and if a pawn reaches the end of the board, it is transformed.”
Brad
God’s Little Listener
“Hearing God call me by name in love, has changed me forever.”
“I was raised in a dead religion. No Holy Spirit. I was taught that God is the angry Old Testament judge, Jesus is love, and the Holy Spirit left earth long ago. I grew up alone and became an insecure type-A achiever, proving my worth at every corner. I met Jesus in a real and experiential way in 2003. Then eighteen months ago the fire of the Spirit started to grow in my belly, and I found the teaching and started praying with any friend who would let me. Someone came to our business and walked twenty-four of us through a beautiful naming experience, and every single person heard from God. Hearing God call me by name in love, has changed me forever. World view, changed. Connection to God, constant.”
Jeff Youth leader
Value Warrior on Fire
“Hearing the voice of Jesus is no longer a rare occurrence. My faith is moving from my head to my heart — where I had always longed for it to be.”
“I have been a Christian from the time of my youth, and in all that time no one mentored me in how to seek Jesus and hear His voice. My faith was more in my head than my heart. Then my church asked me to shepherd five of our small group leaders. I asked each one how I might serve them best, and to a man they said: pray for me. And I knew I had to up my prayer game — I would doze off when I prayed, and my mind would go to a thousand other things I needed to do. Then I heard the teaching at our church on a Tuesday night, full house, and I was mesmerized. I wanted that. I read the book ten times. Hearing the voice of Jesus is no longer a rare occurrence. My faith is moving from my head to my heart, where I had always longed for it to be.”
Ben Shepherds his church’s small group leaders
Dream Chaser
“For 40 years, I had confused the voice of shame for the voice of God. I had actually flipped who God and Satan were.”
“I was a dreamer from the beginning. But somewhere in church I started hearing a voice I thought was God, and it was the voice of shame. Sin, then punishment. He loved some future better version of me, not me. Then I heard that God is not the accuser — Satan is. For forty years I had it flipped. I wrote down every terrible name I had called myself, and Jesus said, ‘Give it to me.’ I closed my eyes and saw Him take the list, and it was gone. Then I asked Him what He calls me. The dreams weren’t dead. They were waiting for the real me.”
Justin Speaker