Ronda Rousey and Identity: What The Best Fighter In The World Taught Us About Life

By now most people have seen Ronda Rousey’s interview with Ellen DeGeneres. The reactions to the interview were mixed (as media reactions almost always are). I for one am grateful for her courage, and feel that her honesty was commendable. I hope her words will encourage others to admit their own struggles and challenges and to seek help. If you haven’t seen the interview, you can watch it here:

          Ellen's Interview With Ronda Rousey

Rousey talked about what her first ever loss in the ring did to her. She admits that she defined herself by her undefeated streak. She was the fighter who never loss. She was the unbeatable champion. Then in a matter of minutes it was all gone. In the moments after the fight, she said to herself, “What am I anymore if I’m not this”.

Rousey is not the only one to define herself by something fragile. We all do it. We define ourselves by the number of zeros on our paycheck. We define ourselves by our ability to attract the opposite sex. We define ourselves by our physical strength, or by our intellect. All of these things are fragile. All will leave us in the very same place Rousey found herself after her fight. Broken and scared. Our physical strength fades. We get older, slower, and more wrinkly. There’s always someone smarter, and there never seems to be enough money, no matter how much we make. When we turn to these things to determine our value, we will only find heartbreak.

You are more than your performance. You are more than your earning potential. You are more than your physical appearance. “What am I worth?” is one of the most important questions we can ever seek an answer to. The only reliable and unchanging answer to that question has to come from a reliable and unchanging source, God. God’s answer to this most important question is…

You are worth living for and dying for.

God chose to live on earth for you, and He chose to die so you could live. God will never change his opinion of you. He will never love you less, and His plans for your life are the only ones you can trust. If you feel broken and confused, know that God is for you. You are worthy because you are worthy in the eyes of God, and God is not wrong about you.