NaCl.

That’s the chemical formula for one of the most common ionic compounds to our everyday life – that of table salt. It’s a 1:1 ratio, meaning it is in equal parts sodium and chloride. When those two elements come together and form a compound, you get salt. Both are an essential part of making this compound that is something entirely different than what those elements are on their own. Take one away, and you no longer have the compound that is so essential to everyday life.

The compound is the sum of these parts; it is not defined by one, but instead is only made when they come together.

This reality is a bit like our own lives. We all have a story; we all have different experiences that have profoundly shaped who we are. All are important because like clay in the hands of a potter, the Lord has used all of them to shape us into who we are. If you take one out, the product of both who we are and who we’re becoming is radically altered. In other words, your experiences matter.

Even, and maybe most especially, the hard ones.

If we took stock of who we are becoming, one of the things we will clearly see is that the hands of our Sculptor seem to have been most formative during the days of difficulty and trial. Though we might have been too blinded by our pain at the time to recognize it, in retrospect we would have to admit that those dark days of difficulty were forming days. It was during those days that God chipped away at our sin and self-reliance; at our lack of trust and immaturity.

It was through those times that we learned perseverance, and after perseverance, all kinds of other godly character traits were moved further and further along. So while we might not necessarily be thankful for the trial itself – we might not thank God for the cancer, for the job loss, for the tears of many kinds – we’ve got to admit that without them, we would not be the people we are today. These experiences were part of the compound of our being.

But not the only part. And this is where we can self-destruct so easily.

Though our trials are an essential part of who we are, they do not define us. They are one of many great works of God in and through us, all coming together to bring about our Christ-likeness. They are part of our definition, of our very core, but they don’t define who we are.

God defines who we are. He calls us His sons and daughters, and the trials we walked through with Him were the means to reinforcing or awakening that true and complete definition. When we experience those trials, we are stripped of all those things we might have trusted in: our career, our health, our ability to manipulate situations for our own good, and we are left bankrupt. We are emptied of what we thought we could count on, what we thought was most precious and dear to us, and when we are left there feeling so very empty, we find our true and lasting mark of identity.

Though we are essentially shaped by our trials, God takes that experience along with all our others to bring about the compound of our being. And in the end, we find that we are shaped, but not defined, by our trials as well as our successes; our accomplishments as well as our failures. We find that we are now, and always, the children of God.