Last updated on June 9, 2020
As soon as she saw him, she knew, and that solved a 54 year old mystery for her. Growing up, Dani Shapiro always felt out of place, as she describes in her essay “A family secret hidden for 54 years,” published in Time Magazine (January 14, 2019). At family gatherings, she was constantly told she didn’t “look Jewish” like her parents. She had blue eyes, blond hair and pale skin. Her childhood, though happy, was marked by a sense of feeling “‘other’ – different from my family in ways I didn’t understand … I was filled with longing, but for what I did not know.”
At age 54, Dani submitted a DNA test on a whim. When the results returned, she discovered she had a biological father who was not the beloved dad she grew up with. Her parents had difficulty conceiving, and during the late 1950s and early 1960s, the fertility treatment at the time involved mixing a father’s sperm with donor sperm.
Once she got the results, it took her only 36 hours to find her biological father online. When they eventually met, she quickly realized they share many similar physical traits. But she also discovered they both have a similar sense of humor and were naturally reserved. They also share the same favorite novel. She says, “When I met him, I understood, for the first time, where aspects of my very personhood had come from.”
We humans tend to struggle to establish our own identity, and we are all unique. But we can’t seem to outrun this sense that there is more to our story, and we long to know more about it. Dani writes, “If the desire to procreate is one of the most powerful human urges, so too is the desire to know our own identity.”
For each and every one of us, our identity can be traced back to, and is rooted in, God. The Creation Story says, “God created mankind in his own image” (Genesis 1:27). Because we were made in His image, many of His traits are pre-loaded in us. Like all children, we rebel, and try to put some distance between us and our ancestry.
But when we get to know God, we begin to understand certain aspects of ourselves better, more fully. That knowledge gives us a sense of purpose and helps define our identity. Our relationship with our Heavenly Father also provides a sense of belonging and security, because after all, we are family.
In what ways do you recognize that you are related to God?