It's been a long while since I have posted. It hasn't been for lack of material, but lack of will. I sat down at the computer a number of times with a quick anecdote, or silly kid story, but I just didn't feel like writing. I'm not depressed, or even in a funk, but my mind just feels heavier than usual. I've had a number of "bigger" topics on my mind, so I decided to share them, and to ask your advice. Though I'm not really sure any one reads this except my family and a couple friends, I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Hot Topic {1} - Identity
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| Reading The Prince's Poison Cup - R.C. Sproul |
At the end of last month and the beginning of this month I was in Charlotte with my kindred cousins. It was my first trip alone, since being married. I have always taken at least a couple kids when I have traveled without Greg, and that has only happened twice. It was a wonderful and relaxing trip! Many nights staying up past our bedtime giggling like 12 year olds. But even though the trip was a blast, I felt strangely out of place. It wasn't my cousins. I always feel comfortable with them, but it was the lack of small people about me. I didn't know what to do with myself without the constant busyness of mom life. I became awkwardly chatty and self conscious about silly things. I didn't remember how to just be, or sit, or be still in my own skin. I didn't realize how fully my identity is wrapped up, not only in my husband and children, but in all the busy work that *needs* to be done around the home. And I don't know about you, but I don't want any part of my identity wrapped up in dirty dishes or poopy diapers!
My identity should be found in Christ. And if you had asked me before the trip I would have felt fairly confident that it was, but it's not. So how does one do that? How can I be just as much myself at home as somewhere else? How can I be the same person I am at church as I am in Target? Or how about when friends are over verses when I am alone?
So my question for all of you...How do you maintain an identity in Christ while still fully operating in the season that He has placed you in? He is my passion and my pursuit, and yet He is so easily forgotten when I have a stack of papers to grade, or children whining at my feet. And I am wanting more...more of Him...less of me!
3 comments:
I don't have a good answer, except to say you're not alone. Somedays I succeed by sheer will-power to have my identity in Him and not in myself or my world. Somedays it just happens, and somedays (most days) I fail miserably. I just keep reading His Word and choose to believe it, and keep reading His Word and choose to believe it, and keep reading His Word and choose to believe it. Even the fact that you are aware of it in the middle of being consumed as a Mom is a big step 1. When God shows you step 2 and 3 and 4 and ... please share. Love you, Mom
Yes, that is what I was going to say too. Pursuing your relationship with Him, making it a priority to be in the Word, asking Him what HE has for you to do today (not just that to-do list that every mom has)...but it is a struggle, I agree. I am there too!
This reminds of one of your first posts, the one about trying to decide to sign off on your posts. Do you remember that one? I always thought it was great, because there are so many things that we do b/c we want to do them, or have to do them, but they don't define us.
It is a struggle to keep Him as the priority, identifying myself in and through Him. But one thing that keeps me from feeling pulled in so many important directions is that the work that I am doing now is a physical act of worship to Him. The job (mothering & helpmeeting) that I have chosen is one I made in obedience to HIS calling for me. And the way I go about it can bring honor to His name, and that's what I want. I can't do this without knowing what pleases Him, so I need to be reading and praying, and simply obeying and trusting. It helps me to know that:
we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them. (Eph. 2:10)
2 Peter 1:2 "Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; 3seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence."
When I keep the perspective that the things I am doing are for Him, and that the gifts that I am able to use to that end are from Him, it keeps me focused on Him.
when I keep the perspective...
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