Its been 2 weeks since we’ve talked. Two weeks Feels like an Eternity! Sometimes the time will fly, but these last few weeks have been so jam-packed with so many things that I needed to do but didn’t quite get done. Honestly, sometimes it was like the time would go slow enough for me to watch it pass, but at the same time it disappeared before I could reach out and grab the moment.
That could be the worst description ever, but it makes sense to me and feels so important. Time is this thing I have grown to really appreciate. Time given, is meant for thinking and I have been doing so much of that lately. I don’t have much time to write between me trying to keep my son from eating raw rice (I promise, I do feed him) and all the other responsibilities that I haven’t even had time to tell you about.
To the important things:
The who I am challenge has changed my life! That may sound dramatic, but I am not kidding. I have had this thought in my mind and every week, I have discovered more and more about who I am. Oh I wish I had the time to write this in a way that you could experience what I experienced.
I have to share what I realized!
Four unchanging truths about myself:
I am loved by God – not because of what I do or don’t do, but because I am His.
I remember times growing up where I felt like the love I received was conditional. I felt more or less love based on my accomplishments, how obedient I was, and more. At the start of this challenge, I felt strongly that the belief that my worth depends on what I accomplish is wildly incorrect in God’s view. That feeling was the start to understanding why I am loved by God. God wants me to become, and He wants me to do good. However, His love is unconditional simply because I am His.
I am someone who consistently strives for progress.
The challenge with this truth is that I am hardly ever satisfied and have perfectionist tendencies. The benefit is that I am driven, intentional, and fixed on seeing progress. God knows I am this way, and sees more possibilities than hurdles because of this quality.
I am someone who has experienced crappy parts of this world, and decided to look to God anyway. That is something I can claim for myself and identify with with so many others.
This truth was probably my favorite because it fights against the belief that I am alone. Isolation and loneliness were two of the hardest feelings I dealt with during my trauma. I felt like no one could carry my burden with me, and nobody had experienced exactly what I had been through. Christ had, but because of my PTSD, I couldn’t feel Him in the ways I knew how. That was really really hard. When I realized this truth, I felt connected to strangers who may have experienced different crappy parts, but they still experienced crap. There are so many people out there that have turned to God in their hard times and stuck with Him afterward. That is what I am trying to do and it strengthens me more than anything to be reminded I am not alone in that endeavor.
God created my Spirit before I received my body. That order was intentional and can empower me, as well as every other person on this planet.
This is probably the most complex prompting I received about myself. It also is one that is hard for me to put into words because I feel like I lack some Christian doctrinal understanding myself. The main thing I felt with this is that if Christ created our Spirits first, then our Spirits have lived longer. Our spirit knows things and has experienced things that our body has forgotten or doesn’t know yet. Therefore, our spirits can teach our body, our spirits can uplift us when our bodies are low, our spirits can strengthen and command our bodies to fulfil things that our bodies by themselves could not do. An example of this in my life would be when I am beyond exhausted, my head finally hits the pillow and then I get a prompting to go write. It is late, I do not want to at all. My body is yelling, screaming NO! Instead of my body winning, my Spirit keeps nagging me and (most the time) I get up. I am given strength to write that I didn’t have before my spirit told my body it needed to accomplish something. I just keep imagining a world where we let the good spirit in us lead our day. What if we all knew how to hear our spirits, or knew better than to ignore it. Can you imagine that kind of world? We would all be unstoppable.
There is still a lot of myself that I don’t know yet. I think it will be a lifetime of continually learning who God made me to be. I feel like these four gave me a really great base to build off of.
Now it’s your turn! Who are you?
There are a lot of new people around here, so let’s get to know each other a little! Share whatever you’re comfortable sharing in the comments below!
Have a great week!
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