Knowing Him Daily

03.May.2026

I have been a “firstborn” my entire life and never once felt like one.

That sentence sat in me for a long time before I knew what to do with it. It showed up during some personal work I’ve been doing, the kind of work that starts in wellness and ends up somewhere much deeper, somewhere close to identity itself. And when it surfaced, it didn’t feel like a revelation so much as an aching recognition. Oh. So that’s what that was.

There’s a Colton Dixon song called “Through All of It” and the opening line stops me every time. He sings about days of giving more than you had, choices you wouldn’t make again, laughter and tears and troubled times, and then he says, “this has been the story of my life.” That’s it. That’s the whole series right there. Not a story of failure, just a story of damage and adapting. Just an honest look back at a life that was real, and complicated, and held. By The One who loved me first. 

Here’s the thing about birth order: it isn’t just a number, it’s a role. It’s a set of expectations, responsibilities, and internal postures that form early, form fast, and form deep. Research backs this up, but you probably already know it in your bones. The firstborn leads. The middle child navigates. The baby charms, deflects, and learns to make themselves small enough to stay safe while being adorable. 

I was born first, and then life happened.

By the time I could reason about who I was, I had already learned to make myself smaller. I had already learned that keeping the peace mattered more than taking up space. I had already handed the firstborn role to my sibling without knowing I had done it, and they, bless them, picked it up because someone had to. Survival doesn’t wait for a family meeting. Survival just happens, and the people who love you rearrange themselves around whatever is threatening you, and everyone does the best they can.

I want to say that clearly before anything else. Everyone did the best they could.

But here’s what grace is showing me now, at this particular season of my life, living alone for the first time ever, quieter than I’ve ever been: the woman underneath the survival patterns is not who I became under pressure. She is who I always was. The entrepreneur. The mother of five. The practitioner, the writer, the one who sees things in people before they see them in themselves. She wasn’t built by better circumstances. She was always there, waiting for the pressure to lift long enough for her to breathe.

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, God told Jeremiah, before you were born I set you apart. Jeremiah 1:5

He knew you before the family dynamics. Before the adaptations. Before the roles that you picked up to survive. He knew the real one.

This series is for anyone who has ever lived inside a version of themselves that was shaped more by what they had to survive than by who they actually are. If you’ve ever felt like you were performing a role that didn’t quite fit, if you’ve ever felt the gap between the self the world saw and the self you sensed somewhere deeper, this is for you.

We’re going to walk through it together. Birth order. Survival patterns. The grace of understanding. And the freedom of coming home to the person God designed before any of it.

If you’ve never invited Jesus into your heart, today is the day. Pray this: 

Dear Heavenly Father, 

Thank You for sending Jesus to die on the Cross just for me. I admit that I have sinned, and I repent. I ask You to forgive me. I believe that He died and rose again. Right now, I make Him the Lord of my life. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit. My sins are washed away, my past is forgiven, and my future is bright. Help me to live like the beloved that I already am in Christ. Thank you for saving me. 

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Make today count and see you tomorrow.