Identity Crisis

I think there's an identity crisis that hits a lot of persons in the Church who walk by faith and call themselves Christians.  It's the identity crisis that comes after we've chased after righteousness in our own attempts and have failed miserably.  We've pursued the ministry and the leadership and the education and the recognition.  We've put on hats and roles we were never meant to fill for the purpose of purpose.  But because it's an ill-fit it never works out.  I think that sometimes, we have to fail at all our roles and everything we find identity in before we can be ready to sit at the feet of Jesus and truly discover our Heaven given identity.

I am a wife.  I am a mother.  I am a daughter and a friend.  A friend and a cousin.  I am an aunt.  I am an individual and I am a follower of Jesus.

And can I be honest, I have failed at them all.  Not once or twice but on a pretty consistent basis.  It seems I am never enough but always too much.  And I don't share this in an effort to pout or feel sorry for myself, but rather in a very real attempt at realizing that I will never be enough, for anybody. I need to learn to deal with rejection and I think so do a lot of stay-at-home Mamas.  What we do is counter-cultural.  In a culture that lives for self gratification married to riches and glory, our job demands death to self and everything we once found identity in.  Then, we immerse ourselves in this job-- the homemaking job, the wife role and the mothering.  Only to fail at it.  Dinner isn't always ready by 6, submission is an art yet to be mastered and using less than friendly tones with your children once in a while more often than you'd really like.

And then what?

photo credit

Enter in identity crisis.

But that's where hope is found.  In that crisis.  When we fail at everything else, Jesus is left and He is the giver of identity.  Only He can give the identity and security and purpose that our hearts long for.  He'll use tools like my children and my husband, my parents and my friends but they're not the end of the story, He is.


I don't know where to go from there.  That's as far I've gotten.  My living hope.  I know that at the moment, He is whispering His purposes, His thoughts and His desires for me to my heart. I may not hear it yet, but I hear this...

"Cease striving and know that I am God." --Psalms 46:10a

I will cease striving. Someway, somehow.  And I will soon hear His whispers loud as thunder. And oh, what a glorious day that will be!

Agape,