Identity Crisis

I never would have imagined that I would ever speak publicly about anything...let alone something personal like "identity". But I did at MOPS on Tuesday! God taught me a lot about who I am and what makes me who I am...this is what I said...

There has been a theme developing in my life over the past few months. Is it just me…or does that happen to you guys too?

It all started this past spring when I signed up for Facebook. I hadn’t planned on developing my profile…I just signed up because my college roommate had started posting photos of her boys and I wanted to look at them. Before I knew it, people from my past were coming out of the woodwork wanting to be my friend. What was I going to say….NO! So I started accepting all these people as friends. Then it started to bug me that whenever my profile came up there was a big question mark instead of a picture. So I uploaded a photo. Then I figured if all these people who I have lost touch with over the years should know what I’m up to these days, so I should probably fill in my profile information. This is where my identity crisis began. Interests….hmmm…what do I fill in for that….activities….oh my…this was harder than I anticipated. I sat for a long time with my fingers on the keyboard before anything came to me and I was able to fill in those blanks. And it occurred to me that there was barely a shred of anything in my life that was even remotely similar to my life before children.

Not to long after that, the MOPS curriculum book arrived in my mailbox. Andrea called in excitement and asked if I had seen it yet….and of course my book was still buried in a pile of junk mail. When I did uncover my book the subtitle grabbed my attention…."finding yourself in the daily adventure." Yes!! That was exactly what I needed to do….find myself!! But how….?

For days after I would catch myself thinking about “finding myself”. Maybe I needed to get back into some of the activities I used to be involved in…back in the day I loved to sing in the choir and play flute with the praise team at church. But when would I do those things…how would I find the time…I knew if I packed my calendar to full it would just make me stressed out and then those things wouldn’t be fun anyway.

This went on all summer long. I even started to feel kind of sorry for myself because everyone else seemed to have their thing…their outlet…their passion. What is mine?

Well, I’m still not sure what it is and here we are, the first MOPS meeting was right around the corner and who of all people was on the calendar to speak on identity but me!!

Saturday night we had to take the boys to the mall to buy new sneakers. As I walked through Carousel Mall in my baggy cargo pants and tee-shirt with my un-manicured toe nails in a pair of grungy flip flops…I won’t lie to you…I was feeling pretty bad about myself…bitter even…missing my old ways of life…back when I worked full time and had money to spend on trendy clothes and name brands. Speaking to you today was weighing heavily on my mind because I had no idea what I would say and felt completely unworthy to say anything at all. Walking past the stores where I once shopped…back when my fit and trim size 6 body looked pretty darn good in a pair of low rise boot cut Gap jeans. Then I saw my frumpy reflection in the glass in front of Anne Taylor (my all time favorite store)…the smart looking, sophisticated clothes inside the store stared back at me and I thought…”What happened to you? Who are you?”

Then I heard a still small voice inside my head whisper back to me…”Judy, you’re still the same to me.” I know that thought came to me from God, my heavenly father, because nothing in my humanness had anything positive to say about anything at that point.

Olga taught a Bible study over the summer on the book of Ephesians. During the study Andrea pointed this verse out to the group….and it stuck with me.

“For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2:10)

After my pity party at the Mall on Saturday…this verse holds an even greater meaning…I am God’s workmanship and he has created me to do certain things that only I can do. So you see, no matter what season of life I am in, no matter what activities I do or don’t do, no matter what I look like on the outside…I am still God’s workmanship. So for now I will find my identity there.