Who do you think you are?

I think everyone has that moment when they utter the words "who am I?"  Its a question that bubbles up from the depths of a soul.

When something is cracked and broken.

We are a culture that looks outside of ourselves to find our identity.  We seek labels and neat packaging with clear indicators of the contents.  We ask people who we are, who they think we are.  We eagerly wait for responses and for some reason.....we believe them.

It's taken as truth, generally unquestioned.  Until we have taken in so much conflicting "truth" that the labels and layers of packaging are so thick we really aren't sure of the contents anymore.

Then suddenly....something deep inside those layers cracks under the pressure and out bubbles "Who. Am. I.?"

When people tell us who they think that we are...shouldn't it be taken as a comment instead of a fact? ...something to be weighed and measured for truth, dismissed when false and simply taken as affirmation of what is already known if true.  But perhaps it simply says "In this moment, this is what I see in you."   And that in general often says more about the person delivering the comment.  They are telling you what you are to them, maybe what they see in you that is in themselves - whether they like it or not.

There are times where something ugly sprouts unnoticed.  We are always growing.  Frankly there are things, like weeds, that initially look like they could be a fruitful plant, so we watch....and wait to see what it emerges into.  Sometimes we don't notice that it's become something thorny and ugly and bears no fruit until it has matured and needs to be removed by the root so it doesn't return.  But this - this kind of uprooting, this kind of "commentary" that points out those weeds in our character can only be affirmed.....should only be affirmed by someone who isn't full of their own weeds.  Someone who can see you clearly.  Someone who can lovingly help you to pull the weed without damaging the fruitful plants around it.

Currently I find myself more secure in who I am than I have ever been in my life....perhaps its age...season in life....or the fruit of labor.  At the same time I find I am seeing people around me in crisis over who they are.  Desperately seeking the answer to the question: Who am I?

A friend posted this song: 

What struck me was...there is your answer.   When there is nothing left of us, when we are broken and on our knees and we find Him.....we find ourselves.  

When we try to "figure out who we are" we are typically looking with the eyes of the world.  What they see, what their measure for success is, the worlds measure of worth.  None of that matters.  

I am not worth X if I don't accomplish Y.   Who says?  Who says that you are not exactly what you were meant to be right here in this moment?  Do you honestly think that the God of the universe, the one who created you before time began, before you were even one single cell, didn't know you would be this beautiful mess right here right now?  You think He didn't know you'd make the mistakes you have?  You think He didn't already know you'd choose to compromise what He created you to be?  You think He wouldn't give you a way out?  No.

He made you.  You want to know who you really are?  Find Him.  Find your Creator and He will show you what He designed you to be.....a reflection of Himself.  He knew the flaws in yourself that you would add to His design but He wrote the program, so they aren't permanent....they can be corrected.  

The Lord is always before us but we have such a habit of looking behind us.  Trying to change where we laid our footsteps and calculate the 'what ifs' into something that might end in a more pleasing present.  

We cannot change the past.   We can learn from it, that is all.  

Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; give me life in Your ways."

~Psalm 119:37

Do not search for your identity in the eyes of people around you.  They didn't create you.  They don't see you completely.  The world tells us to "find ourselves"....honestly the way the world tells us to do so is to forget the world around us and look only at ourselves.  Focus deeply on "me".  Yes, there are seasons where we need to closely self-monitor.  When we are training new patterns and trying to uproot weeds, this does take some careful introspection to find them and get the whole root.  Guess who the ultimate gardener is?  

The first One.  

When we focus only on ourselves, the way the world would tell us to, our eyes are not on Him.  We make ourselves an idol before Him.....something we are carefully crafting independently from Him.  What that really is....what it really amounts to.....fruitless labor.  We cannot undo what He has created.  We cannot change the purpose He created us for....the purpose is still there.  Used improperly for a time perhaps, but the purpose still remains.  

We do so much out of selfish desire.  We whine "what about me" all too often.  You know, I think I've finally found out that when I am whining about me, that is the precise moment that I am the most miserable.  When I am in full out "its not about me" mode.....I am the most at peace.  I am the most confident and capable person when I am simply a serving vessel.  I'm sure I'll have those moments where I will slop out an exhausted "hey I'm over here, what about me"....we all will at some point and I'm nowhere near perfect.  But I think I finally get it.....when I make it about me....I make things miserable.  I wasn't designed for me, I was designed for Him....when I am all about Him....I fulfill my purpose and find contentment.

I am not who you say that I am.  What you think I am may affirm who He created me to be, but it does not define me.  Your label doesn't stick anymore.  The layers of packaging are disappearing and what is left is who He made.  Who He asks me to be.

Who are you?  

He's told you time and time again.

You are His.

You will seek Me and find Me, when you seek me with all your heart.

~Jeremiah 29:13

Blessings of beautiful brokenness that leads you to see who you really are....in His eyes only.

the Mrs.

He made you to be....

the cake to my diabetic soul.

"The Devil knows just what I like and just how I like it." ~ Deon Sanders

I'm not typically given to quoting athletes but I heard him say this once and it struck me as a deep truth to remember.  So into my quote book it went.

It comes to mind often....surprisingly often actually.  One of those things that makes me aware of the Lord's deep caring of my character.  The Devil may know my buttons to push but the Lord knows me, as a whole person and provides the reminders He knows that I need.

Have you ever taken a class on spiritual gifts? When I first took the class I'd never heard of "spiritual gifts" before, even having attended christian schools all my life.  It was new to me and it opened my eyes to how specially the Lord had been working in my life in a way I'd not been equipped to see before.  My relationship with the Lord became more intimate and I saw that I had a useful purpose in life - I was useful to Him!  It was a major marker in my faith walk.  Like with anything though it can have it's drawbacks.

While taking this class was tremendously positive, it lacked a firm focus on the fact that gifts are only a tool.  We are tools and like a hammer, are only useful if the carpenter picks us up to use us.  Gifts are not individual super powers to be used willy nilly.  They do not make one person more important or special than another.  A hand is no more important than a foot.  We don't praise the hammer for pounding the nail, we praise the carpenter for his skills in knowing just the right tools to use.  It should be the same with us.  We are only as useful as our relationship is close to Him.  The farther we get the more rust forms and we don't quite function as accurately or efficiently as we could.

The farther we get, the more credit we take, the more we depend on ourselves instead of Him.   Suddenly we find ourselves as a hammer on a bench glowing about how wonderful and awesome we are, yet completely useless.  Nonfunctional and totally unaware of how far we've slipped.

Been there, done that.

The thing is, we help each other get there too.  We give each other credit for the amazing things that happen as a result of our prayers.  I'm rambling off target again, I know but stay with me.  When we know what someones gift is, we give them the credit instead of God. We reduce them to that gift, tie them to it and limit them to its use.  People have often referred to me as a "Prayer Warrior".  A title that indulged my gluttonous ego. I loved it and it sucked me in to a place where I felt powerful and singled out......and every time it would cause me to stumble and fall face first into the fluffy frosted sweetness.  My gift became my badge, my identity and then who I was as a whole person seemed to disappear to everyone - including me - except God.  In His wisdom He would pull me away from whatever I was doing and set me back into a sort of "time out".   Seclusion, not isolation, but a quiet time where opportunities for me to put my foot in my mouth were farther apart, compliments were not needed, where silence helped me review and see things with new eyes, talk to Him, confess and repent...again.  Followed by a refreshment and a newly adjusted perspective.  I've been in an extended time out.  He's shown me what ministry He wants me to do and cleared me of assumptions and rules I thought I needed to follow.  He stopped my running after peace and made me sit and experience it as He put it in my lap.

He's shown me my weakness and He's shown me how it is fed.  Compliments and credit.  Now He is teaching me how to turn my weakness into a way to glorify Him.  I've so much to learn here....how to phrase a correction, turn a compliment into a praise of Him...redirecting their attention to Him and off of me.  Some respond with an intense tone that I need to stop being so "humble" and accept the praise and ownership that He has blessed me with "tremendous gifts".   No.  Here is the plain ugly truth:

I am as arrogant and prideful as they come.   Jesus and the Devil both know it too.  Compliments turn me into a fat kid in a room full of cake and no supervision.  Jesus knows I have to turn my nose up at a compliment like its poison because the temptation to stuff my pride with those luscious words is too great a detriment to my diabetic soul.  

How to handle those moments?  I haven't mastered that yet.  Right now I think I verbally flail around until the delectable morsel ends up knocked in the dirt.  It's awkward and ungraceful....and can border on offending.  On the upside I didn't devour it.......though sometimes I do secretly dig it out of the dirt.  While my spirit is covered in dirt filled frosting I turn to Him and don't even have to say "oops I did it again".  He knows.

When you know the Lord has used someone in your life to bless you......affirm them by telling them that the Lord has used them in a mighty way to bless you in your life.  Share it with them but give credit where credit is due.....to Him and Him alone.  

"The Devil knows just what I like and just how I like it." 

Frosted.

Blessings of grace and truth, moments of beauty free from flailing.

the Mrs.

A Holy Love

This verse keeps coming to me....and once again I find myself seeing a familiar verse with new eyes.

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word, so that He might present the church to Himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.  In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.  He who loves his wife, loves himself.  For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of His body."  Eph. 5:25-30

I have heard this piece of scripture so many times.....but something struck me when I read it with the intensity that the Lord has placed on my heart to be aware of words.   As Christ loved the church....that is an amazing selfless love.  To be instructed to love someone in the same way that Jesus loves us.    Everything Jesus did was for us.....beginning to end.   Literally.....in His life and His death....it was all for us.    He put Himself into the hands of people that He knew would eventually kill Him because it was for our benefit. 

He was born to save us.....to guide us.....to show us what we are capable of.   He left His glory behind, His choir of angels did not come with Him.....His radiant robes stayed behind, His power and glory all set aside and He came into the world with 2 things.......His purpose: to save us......and His constant companion: His Father.

He set it all aside so We could see what it looked like for a human to fully set aside their intentions, pride, will and desires for self and fully surrender to the Lord, depending on Him for ALL THINGS.

So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you,  the Son can do nothing of His own accord, but only what He sees the Father doing.  For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise."  John 5:19

How amazing is that!?   He gave up so much just to show us what we were missing!   Love. 

Nourish....and cherish......those are beautiful commands given to man that we are then the recipients of.  He presents Eve to Adam....a holy, unblemished gift.....glorious and wonderful.   Later after they are both soiled and totally imperfect....He tells man in a new way how to care for this gift.   Jesus shows him how to care for this gift by caring for man ~all of humanity~  Himself in the same way.  

It is a holy love.....a holy gift this relationship.   I feel like the gift keeps getting more and more clear as I pull back the wrapping and discover more and more in His Word.......

....instruction manuals yield so much information. 

"If you abide in My Word, you are truly My disciples, and you will know the Truth and the Truth will set you free."    John 8:31-32

Loving blessings, 

the Mrs.

P.s.  I do not share these scriptures or thoughts to condemn or convict any man, nor to equip any woman with a weapon to wield against any man.  

God's gift

In any story, when we jump into the middle of it we lose understanding.  It is always best to go back to the beginning to gain understanding.   The "big picture" is easier to take in when we stand back just a bit.

In my journey to learn about this role of wife, I needed to go back to the beginning.   What was going on when God created woman...what was He thinking?   When I read the familiar story a little more slowly and paid a bit more attention to the words.....I found a gift tucked inside.

In Genesis 2 the Word tells us that (v18) Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."   These first couple of chapters seem to be written in a one step forward two steps back kinda way.   The contrast between this discovery of "it is not good" and all His other proclamations of "it is good" is worth making note of.   If verse 18 is the step forward, 19 and 20 seem to be the two steps back, providing us with extra details....(v19) out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.”

 The Creator of the universe brought things to his creation to name.....even in the first days the Lord has a servant heart....He could have let Adam wander about, discovering and naming things as he went.   God could have walked him through, giving him a tour and telling Adam what He had named it all....but He didn't.    He brought the creatures to him to see what he would call them.   In that moment, The Lord delighted in Adam giving names to all things....without correction.    There was nothing to correct because nothing had been named at that point but that in and of itself is huge.  God didn't take His title of Creator and name everything because He could.....He gave that honor away actively placing man in a dominant place in the world.

Moving on......I had to stop and ponder that one...(v20) The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.  But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.  The scriptures go on to tell us how God placed Adam in a deep sleep, removing a rib and creating a woman out of it.    

 I must ponder a moment again.....I wonder why it was a rib....does it have anything to do with the proximity to man's heart?  .....is that why we feel the most safe and secure when we are pulled close in the arms of the man we love....drawn back to the origin of where He first took us from....under his arm and near his heart.  

 Back to verse 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.  Again He brings His creation to the man.   This time it was a very special creation...one created FOR him, FIT for him......tailored especially for his needs.   Man responds....(v23) 

“This at last is bone of my bones

and flesh of my flesh;

she shall be called Woman, 

because she was taken out of Man."

Again the Lord lets Adam name His creation.   In all the years of learning this story, the many times of reading it I never really got that piece.   We are God's gift to man. 

The Hebrew word translated as "helper" is 'ezer.  ...a fit helper is one who compliments the other, supplying what the other lacks.....it is not about equality but a matching set….. 

We fit together…like these salt and pepper shakers.  Carved from one piece of wood, they fit together beautifully.  Separately they are each beautiful but one is not a copy of the other….the curves are not the same…the grain is not the same…the inside was not purposed for the same contents…..   

A gift….

Given to man.

Custom fit to his needs.

Of all creation….woman was created differently.   Every other creature that moved and breathed was created from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:19).   Woman was created out of man.  Created for man…..to help him.  She was presented to him as something special….like a treasure he did not know he needed or wanted……I can only imagine how happy he was to see her.   Can you imagine how she was received by him?   No evil existed….no negativity or selfishness….just simple exuberance over a gift that cures any ache of loneliness he may have had….extra help to rule a world that was handed to him….not a city, not a state or country….but the world.  What an amazing moment that must have been…..and to top it off he stood in the presence of the Lord.  …didn’t know what he had until it was gone…

My favorite moment in any wedding is when everyone stands up to watch the bride walk down the aisle.   I love to watch the groom instead…..to watch his face glow with adoration and his chest swell with pride.   Adam’s face must have been a sight to behold….

We know the honeymoon didn’t last long but I think it’s a gift we can all reclaim.  A moment to hold onto.  

The Hebrew term for man is “ish” and for woman is “ishshah”……funny as they may sound, it further reflects how interconnected we are…

Blessings, the Mrs.