The Mysterious Core

Do you think we’re shaped more by our experiences or by who we are?

I don’t think it’s an either-or question. I think we are born with something unique inside us—a personality, a temperament, a soul that leans in certain directions long before we understand why. But life has a way of sculpting that person, sometimes gently and sometimes with a hammer.

Experiences don’t create us out of nothing. They reveal us, challenge us, wound us, strengthen us, and occasionally bury parts of us so deeply that we forget they were ever there.

For much of my life, I believed I was the person everyone expected me to be. I was successful in business. I became a pastor. I was dependable, responsible, and devoted to my family and my faith. Those things were real, but they weren’t the whole story. Beneath all of that lived someone I had spent decades trying not to acknowledge.

The experiences of my life taught me many things. Some were beautiful. Falling in love. Raising children. Holding grandchildren. Standing beside hospital beds. Preaching hope when people had almost none left. Those moments shaped me into someone more compassionate than I might have become otherwise.

But suffering has also been one of my greatest teachers.

Heartbreak has a way of stripping away illusions. Rejection teaches you which voices matter and which ones never should have. Failure humbles you. Loss reminds you that every relationship is precious because none of them lasts forever.

When I finally came out later in life, I discovered something surprising. Transition didn’t make me into a different person. It introduced me to the person who had been there all along.

The core of who I am, my curiosity, my empathy, my love of God, my desire for justice, my fascination with people’s stories-,didn’t suddenly appear. Those qualities survived despite years of fear and hiding. If anything, authenticity allowed them to flourish more fully.

That experience convinced me that our deepest identity is remarkably resilient.

Imagine a tree growing in a forest. A strong wind may bend its trunk. A lightning strike may scar its bark. A harsh winter may break its branches. Those experiences absolutely shape the tree. You can read its entire history by looking at the scars.

But the tree is still an oak.

It never becomes a maple simply because life was difficult.

In the same way, I think each of us carries something essential that cannot easily be erased. Our experiences influence how that inner self is expressed, protected, or even hidden, but they do not necessarily replace it.

At the same time, experiences matter enormously.

Someone who has known hunger often understands generosity differently than someone who has never worried about a meal. A person who has survived addiction, discrimination, divorce, grief, or war often develops a depth of compassion that cannot be learned from books. Experience stretches the heart in ways comfort never can.

I’ve often wondered whether I would be the same pastor if my life had unfolded without struggle.

Would I have listened as carefully?

Would I have preached grace with the same conviction?

Would I have understood the loneliness of people sitting quietly in the back pew, wondering if God could possibly love someone like them?

Probably not.

My own experiences taught me that people rarely need judgment. They need someone who believes they are still worthy of love.

Perhaps that is why I no longer see painful experiences as interruptions to life. They are part of its curriculum. I wouldn’t choose many of them again, but I cannot deny what they taught me.

Even so, experience alone isn’t enough.

Two people can endure the same hardship and emerge very differently. One becomes bitter while another becomes compassionate. One closes off while another opens wider. The event is identical. The response is not.

That tells me there is something deeper than experience at work.

Character.

Choice.

Spirit.

The mysterious core of who we are.

As a Christian, I would go one step further. I believe each person bears the image of God. That image can become obscured by trauma, fear, shame, or hatred, but it is never destroyed. God’s work throughout our lives is not to manufacture a brand-new person but to restore the one God created us to be.

That understanding has changed how I see myself and everyone around me.

Instead of asking, “What happened to this person?” I also ask, “Who were they before the world convinced them they had to hide?”

Sometimes healing is less about becoming someone new than remembering who you’ve always been.

Looking back over my own life, I can see both forces at work.

The experiences gave me scars.

The person within gave those scars meaning.

The experiences taught me resilience.

The person within kept hoping.

The experiences changed the direction of my life.

The person within never stopped longing to live authentically.

So, are we shaped more by our experiences or by who we are?

I believe we are born with a melody that belongs only to us. Life writes the harmony around it. Sometimes the harmony is joyful, sometimes dissonant, sometimes heartbreakingly beautiful. But beneath every changing chord, the melody remains.

The privilege of growing older is finally hearing that melody clearly enough to sing it without apology.

And perhaps that is what becoming fully human is all about—not inventing ourselves, but allowing the truest version of ourselves to emerge through every joy, every sorrow, every failure, and every grace.