Who am I and what defines me?

I don’t think that we can define ourselves.  To define ourselves means that we have definite limits, edges, perimeters.  But my true resting nature is one of many deep facets. 

I used to feel like all that defined me was being a mother and a wife.  I felt caught in those titles.  I sought my worth in acceptance from other people.  I felt like a disappointment.  I felt unaccomplished.  I felt unworthy.  I let the world define who I was and how I felt.  What I had, or could afford, what degree I did or didn’t have, what I wore and where I lived contributed to how valuable I thought I was.  But when I found Christ and started to seek my worth and self in Him, I realized that none of those things mattered at all.  As my relationship with the Lord deepened, I came to see that my deep longing for acceptance and love and worth could only be found in what I was lacking.  God.  All that I desired could only be given unconditionally through Him.  When we seek to fulfill ourselves through worldly means, we feel empty, no matter what we have or where we go or who loves us.  Our souls only crave more of the Divine.  Connection.  Truth.  When we begin to define ourselves based on our relationship to God, it is then that we can begin to discover our true self, who we are and what we were created to be.

I have been a lot of things to a lot of people over the years.  I always sought to please everyone, never finding true happiness within myself.  So as I began to know the Lord on a deeper, more meaningful level, I began to see that to be truly happy and content, I had to seek only to please Him.  I come up short every day, but I strive to please Him, and thankfully, He is a God of unending grace.  I have been a student and a teacher.  I have been a child and a parent.  I have been cared for and a care giver.  I have been a reader and a writer.  I have been served and I have served.  I have been a friend and an enemy.  I have been a lover and a wife.  I have been observed and I have been an observer.  I have been sick and I have been well.  I have been scared and I have had peace.  I have been loved and I have loved.  I have laughed and I have cried.  I have been a sinner and I have been saved.  But of those things, there is only one that defines me truly.  I have been saved.  My identity is in Christ.  In the bible, God is called “I Am.”  He is the GREAT I AM.  He is all that was, is, and is to come.  I am found somewhere in the middle of all that God is.

I am His.  I am light.  I am enough.  I am perfectly flawed.  I am redeemed.  I am a Holy temple for the Spirit.  I am a co-heir with Christ for the Kingdom of God.  I am a branch from the living Vine.  I am fruitful.  I am the hands and feet of Christ.  I am a child of God.  I am a servant of the Lord.  I am justified.  I am a friend of Jesus.  I am free.  I am accepted.  I am called to be a saint.  I am wise.  I am righteous and sanctified.  I am one with God.  I am open, no longer is my heart hard.  I have been made new.  I am one of many brothers and sisters in Christ.  I am blessed.  I am chosen.  I am holy.  I am blameless.  I am marked with the promise of God.  I am alive.  I am His workmanship, hand crafted by the hand of God.  I am made for good works.  I am called to spread the Good News.  I am predestined for suffering for the cross with Christ.  I am near to God because Christ has rectified me to Him by His sacrifice.  I am a part of the body of Christ.  I am a partaker of His promise.  I am bold.  I am confident in my access to God through Christ on the cross.  I am a citizen of Heaven.  I am faithful.  I am full of peace that passes understanding.  I am rooted in Christ.  I am quenched of thirst through the living water that Christ gives.  I am nourished.  I am guarded in my heart and mind.  I am supplied with all of my needs.  I am covered in the feathers of His wings in refuge.  I am complete.  I have been raised up with Christ.  I am inseparable from God.  I am loved.  I am of God.  I am established.  I am assured.  I am anointed and sealed by God.  I am hidden in God.  I am of power.  I am of love.  I am of self-discipline.  I am untouchable.  I am fearless.  I am born of God.  I am gloriously lavished in God’s grace.  I am forgiven.  I am forgiving.  I am unrestricted.  I am in Him.  I am purposefully placed.  I am hopeful.  I am included.  I am salt to the earth.  I am reconciled.  I am witness to Christ.  I am a co-worker for God.  I am a minister to my own mission field.  I am raised from the dead.  I am seated with Christ in Heavenly Realms.  I am covered with kindness.  I am richly blessed.  I am near to God.  I am able to access God.  I am of the house of the Lord.  I am secure.  I am a dwelling for the Holy Spirit.  I am a vessel for God’s powerful works to flow through.  I am loved deeply, widely and expansively by Christ.  I am complete.  I am called.  I am humble.  I am glorifying God.  I am patient.  I am kind.  I am lovingly tolerant.  I am spiritually mature.  I am certain of the Truth.  I am compassionate.  I am truth.  I am open and understanding to God’s will.  I am thankful.  I am honoring my marriage.  I am parenting with compassion and composure.  I am strong.  I am powerful in God.  I am firmly standing.  I am dead to sin.  I am not alone.  I am led.  I am growing.  I am a disciple.  I am not alone.  I am not in want or need.  I am united.  I am prayed for by Christ and the Spirit.  I am victorious.  I am filled with a Christ-like mind.  I am worthy.  I am clothed in love.  I am armed with the word of God.  I am protected.  I am safe.  I am healed.  I am helped.  I am part of a greater force.  I am persevering.  I am overcoming.  I am fulfilled.  I am born again.  I am new.  I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  I am ready to receive my inheritance of Heaven.  I am qualified.  I am delivered.  I am freely receiving.  I am living for Christ, neither the world nor myself.  I am built on the Strong Foundation.  I am in direct communication with God.  I am complete. I am resurrected.  I am unashamed.  I am partaker of Divine Nature.  I am from the dust of the earth.  I am enslaved, gloriously, to God.  I am jointed.  I am a valued member.  I am pre-planned.  I am not a mistake.  I am an expression of God.  I am Pala, a marvelous work of God.  I am sharing in the life of Christ.  I am a resemblance of God Himself.  I am a resemblance of Christ in His return.  I am anxiously awaiting the second coming.  I am part of a royal priesthood.  I am part of a holy nation.  I am of a chosen race.  I am an enemy of the enemy.  I am a warrior.  I am a stranger to this temporary world.  I am eternal.  I am God’s proclaimed excellence.  I am a sheep of the Good Shepherd.  I am led to still waters.  I am replenished.  I am rested in His presence.  I am of His possession.  I am walking in His path.  I am unconformed.  I am transformed.  I am known.  I am a child of day.  I am abiding in love.  I am powerful.  I am thankful.  I am in prayer.  I am guarded.  I am allotted grace and mercy.  I am set in mind on things of the Spirit.  I am God’s field.  I am His building.  I am cared for.  I am in fellowship.  I am joyful.  I am of plans for hope and prosperity.  I am never alone.  I am never forsaken.  I am sober-minded.  I am watchful.  I am awakened.  I am a good steward.  I am a servant.  I am useful.  I am gifted.  I am shining.  I am gentle.  I am respectful.  I am defender.  I am given life abundantly.  I am above reproach.  I am eager.  I am hopeful.  I am known.  I am purposeful.  I am irreplaceable.  I am baptized.  I am teachable.  I am valuable.  I am filled.  I am overflowing.  I am imperishable.  I am rejoicing.  I am limitless.  I am equipped.  I am a speaker of truth in love.  I am unashamed.  I am open. 

The Word of God tells us exactly who we are, who we are meant to be, who we have always had the ability to be.  I now stand firmly on the Word, my being is consecrated through God.  Who I am and what defines me is only as limited as the God I serve.  I serve a limitless God, therefore, I too am limitless.

To a special someone who encouraged me to blog my Yoga homework, thank you for appreciating me and where I am in my journey, and thank you for being wonderfully you!

Here Is My Fish

I am not sure how to describe all of the emotions that I have been feeling lately.  There have been a multitude of ups and downs over the last few months.  I have recently been reminded of lessons taught and learned long ago.  I have faced uncertainty and longing and heartache, just like everyone else.  So here, I begin with a story.

Over the Easter weekend, Justin, the kids and I took an impromptu trip to Ocean City.  Our second night there, after the kids were in bed fast asleep, Justin and I sat on the balcony of our hotel room, taking in the view of the ocean, breathing in deep the smell of the salt air, listening to the rumbling of the waves pushing into the surf.

As we sat there, we began to reminisce about childhood, when we started dating, trips we had taken, soaking in the fact that we had spent nearly a decade together, reconnecting.  For the first time, we really talked about the heartache I have been enduring since the loss of my grandmother and the heartaches of our children and the hardships that the loss has brought to our family.

It is hard for me to be so vulnerable and open about these deep feelings of loss and sadness.  These things bring up memories of a time a few years back that were not very good for me, when I suffered a dark depression.  Each time these feelings of sadness lurk around, I get scared that I might slip back into that place with no light, when I felt not hope, and when I felt utterly disconnected from everyone and every thing, including myself.

When my grandmother passed, I had taken a week long trip to the beach with my parents and my kids.  Justin had just started a new job so he was unable to accompany us.  After what had seemed like a very long time of spending so much time apart because of taking care of her, spending nights along her bedside in fear of her passing when I was not there, it felt almost selfish to leave him behind.

I had a deep longing in my soul to be at the beach, though, at that time.  I could only explain it in one way.  I needed to be overwhelmed by something greater than my grief.  The only thing that I could think of that was that big was the ocean.  So I went. 

I spent that week much the same way.  Soaking in the sound of the crashing waves, taking in the expansive horizon, in awe at the immensity of His creation.  I spent evenings and mornings on the balcony with my parents, tears soaking my face as I tried to make sense of this new normal that I would have to make peace and live with.

That week was incredibly healing.  I had not been back to the beach since until our Easter trip.  So as we sat there together on our balcony, I began to become overwhelmed with the same feelings.  They resurfaced and pushed their way up my throat, erupting into quiet sobs in the night. 

As I allowed myself the chance to put to words the things my heart had been aching with, I began to feel a sense of relief.  I felt a physical weight come off of my chest.  As we spoke softly in the salty night air, I took notice to something stories below.

In the bottom of our hotel, there was a small café.  It had outdoor seating on a little patio, just off of the boardwalk.  It was getting late, maybe around 10 PM or so.  As I looked down upon the ocean, my eye caught a glimpse of something fluttering in the wind.  The café had an "OPEN" flag that was hung out over the rail.

It occurred to me that it was ironic that such a thing should capture my eye as we had this conversation.  God was speaking.  I knew that I was meant to share my words and I started thinking about what it was that He wanted me to say.  So I pulled up the camera on my phone and tried to take a photo of the flag.

As I tried to capture the image, the wind was fluttering the flag all about.  Each time the flag would open up nice and wide, I would snap a photo, and just as timely, the flag would flutter closed.  I tried for several minutes to get this picture, growing agitated that the wind would just not "cooperate" with me.

Oh, the irony.  This was God's very message.  Oh, how oblivious I was.  Every time I try to open my heart up, to be vulnerable, to let someone in, I just as quickly close my heart, turning inward, shutting the world out again.  Each time I let someone get a glimpse of me, I quickly make sure that it is only fast enough not to get hurt or judged.

Just days before our trip, I wrote a blog post called "Open Heart" in which I spoke of my Yoga journey and ending up in a training named "Open Heart".  It seemed to me as if, while I know the truths of living with an open heart, I had not necessarily been living it quite as well as I had thought.

Each day, I have the blessed repeated opportunity to live in this light of openness.  Each day I have the repeated lesson to learn that only by truly opening our hearts up to others can we live a connected and well lived, loved and meaningful life.

I wrote long ago that, often times, God presents us with the same learning opportunities time and time again, repeating the chance until we make the conscious choice to choose differently, to finally grasp and embrace the lesson, to live differently, to make the decision to live better, to love harder, to surrender more, to humbly accept, and to willfully desire a more connected and honest, truthful life worth living.

This weekend during "Open Heart" Yoga training, we were read a small excerpt from the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.  The verse was a metaphor.  It spoke of our "self" as a fish and how we should put our "fish" in an aquarium and put it on display, as if to say to the world, "Here is my fish!"  It is meant to say that we are as we are.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  Just as we are. 

So, here I am, guys!  This is my fish!  This is who I am.  This is my heart.  I ask that you take it, not break it, but hold it gently.  If you hurt it along the way, I will forgive you and move on, tending to my brokenness.  As Jesus declares, forgiving 7 times 77 times. 

Melissa and I taught a Sunday school series last year to the high school kids about wearing masks for people.  The recurring theme is ever present in my life.  Think about this: If all the people who know you are put in one room together, would you know who to be?  Are you always the same, never changing, or do you wear masks of different colors and shapes when you are accompanied by different people? 

Our Yoga training class took a visit to a local charity a few weeks back that we will be supporting in an upcoming event that we are putting together.  Olivia's House is an organization in York that offers free grief and loss services to children and their families. 

Side note:  As I walked in the door, I first of all could not deny the presence of hundreds of butterfly symbols throughout the facility.  And if you know me, you know that the butterfly is a sign of the presence of the love of my grandmother.  Needless to say, I cried, SEVERAL times, but only when I could be in the back of the group so as to quickly wipe my tears quietly away.

Back to the organization though... They provide many services to these children, including art therapies.  In the hallway upstairs, there were masks hanging on the walls.  As our guide talked about some of the art therapy projects, this one really stood out to me. 

The children were tasked with writing and decorating the front of their masks with the things that they wanted other people to see, the outward sign of "Okayness", words like happy, okay and fine splattered the fronts of these masks.

Then she told us to flip the masks over.  On the insides of the masks, they were to write how they really felt.  Words like hurting, sad, lonely, and the most heart breaking one that we saw, "Help me!" were inked upon the inner walls of these children's hearts.

And I sympathized.  My dearly beloved yogi friend, Laurie, kept checking in with me, "You okay?"  As I choked back the tears, wiping my eyes in the back of the group, I would nod, yes.  But she knew, she said she could tell that I was feeling it all.  This place spoke to me, to my heart and to my grief.

Even as we wandered the halls of the facility, I held tight to my mask of "Okay".  I don't know why.  But here is my fish.  This is the inside of my mask.  I refuse to wear that outward "Okay" mask any longer.  I still hurt.  I still lash out.  I still bottle up my feelings of loss and sadness.  My heart aches.

As we sat there on our balcony that night at the beach, I took that mask off for the first time in I don't know how long.  The truth is, I barely recognized myself.  I had hidden away my inner self for so long, even I was not sure who to be any more in an aquarium full of all the people that I know.  I have been so many things to so many people, I forgot who I am.  Mother, wife, daughter, home schooler, Sunday school teacher, care giver, and the list goes on.  They are all things I do, but not WHO I AM.  More than anything, that is what I am learning on this Yoga journey.

I proclaim it now, though.  Here is my fish.  Here I am.  Here is who I am when the masks come off.  Here is my heart.  I am hanging it out for everyone to see.  We all hurt, we all cry, we all have fears, we all face loss.  Why, then, are we so afraid of doing it together?  We share these heartstring moments with everyone else in creation.  We need to live this openness, not just fluttering between open and closed, but we need to let our "OPEN" flags extend out, remaining there indefinitely.

So there was my sign to keep my "OPEN" flag out, long past when I want to close up shop.  God is urging me to let the winds of life carry me where they may, to trust that my destination is already determined, and to believe that He would keep me safe in the travels and the storms, holding tight to the promise that I would be delivered. 

It is not my purpose in this short life to protect my heart.  My purpose is to live out loud, strong in faith, open and raw, holding my heart in an outstretched hand to anyone who is willing to take it.  If and when it does get hurt, I know that I can rest easy in the storm, in the palm of The One who carries us when we can not walk.  And I know that I can always take comfort in the immensity and overwhelming expansiveness of the healing waters of the ocean, the sounds of the late night tides, the salty air, and the glorious sunrises that promise a new day with new opportunities to learn and heal.