Who Am I Supposed to Be?

I was a shy little girl, one who made my little sister buy our lunch tickets because I was too chicken to talk to the school secretary, the adolescent who ducked into the next aisle to avoid talking to my friends' parents, the young woman who stressed about speaking to customers in my first job as a grocery store clerk.

And now as an adult, God has placed me in a very public position. I regularly reveal my thoughts and weaknesses as a Bible study leader. I open myself up BIG TIME on this blog. Many Sundays I stand before hundreds of people on my church's worship team, on display, exposed, left wondering if I measure up, feeling as small as I did in my little girl days. When I close my eyes to praise God and shut out the crowd, I ask Him what I'm supposed to be. How am I to handle the attention that comes my way? I ask what He sees in me that very moment, vulnerable to the eyes of so many.

He says I am the shy little girl others have never known, the woman spending many hours alone, persistently banging out words on a computer, or studying for the next lesson. I am intimate moments with friends, sleepless nights, struggles with my kids, tears and joy and pain. I am my failures, my battles, my soft spots, my improvements, my every effort. Though my fellow congregants see only my best attempts to look nice on a Sunday morning, God looks past my public persona. He sees ALL of me, who I really am.

Somehow that takes the pressure off. I don't have to be any more on a Sunday morning than I am right now, alone in my office typing away. Who I am is not dependent on the impressions others have of me. Their view is very small. God's is all-encompassing. The person I'm supposed to be is everything I've ever been, following God's leading each day.

Does thinking of it this way take the pressure off of you? Does it empower you as it does me? How does it affect your view of yourself?

Looking for Significance

"How is your writing?" they ask.

They take me off guard and I'm not sure how to answer the question, so I shrug.

They look to my husband to explain, "Kevin says you've been doing some writing. What are you working on?"

I tell them, and my list seems insignificant, unimpressive, almost silly. I suddenly feel like a little girl who's just announced she's learned how to tie her shoes all by herself. Big deal.

I spend hours at my computer typing words, many of which are read only by me, and in this moment, when called to give account for how I spend my time, I ask myself the question others have surely wondered.

WHY?!

There are no financial rewards, little encouragement and lots of time stuck in my head, which frankly my friends would say I could do without. And yet there's this drive within me, a woman who is definitely NOT a type A person, that must be placed there by God. He nudges me along with kind comments from others, confirming what I already know. I need to do this.

And so, shoving down my desire to be somebody (and I mean SHOVING), I say to these sweet people who've asked, "I don't know where we're going with it. I just do it. God's teaching me to wait on Him."

I want to do great big things for God and He says, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Simmer down there Tam. Wait on Me. I've got the plan. I'm working it out for MY glory, not yours."

And so I keep typing, trusting God to make it mean something. For that is all anyone can do, isn't it? Apart from Him, we can do nothing.

Apart from Him, we'll struggle to find significance.

How about you? Do you want to make your mark? Do you want your time on earth to be remembered? Have you had that yearning to do something no one else can? Are you looking for significance?

We think we can find it by marrying Prince Charming, but once we do, we realize we have to feed him and wash his underwear. We land our dream job and feel instant stress to perform well. We think once we have babies our purpose in this world will be complete, but end up wondering how to hang on to our sanity at 3:AM with a screaming baby for the third night in a row. We become teachers and lawyers and accountants and nurses and psychologists (fill in the blank with your aspiration), assuming a title will bring the value we long to feel, the respect we desire. Yet we find ourselves spinning our wheels trying to achieve that which will never come.

Because if it isn't enough being God's child, if Jesus' sacrifice isn't enough to give us our significance, to tell us how important we are, we'll never be satisfied with the other blessings He brings our way.

If we can't see our value to God, how will we ever find it in the temporal things of earth?

My attempts to be "successful" are really my way of proving my worth to others, and worse, proving myself to God. I don't have to BE anybody. YOU don't have to be anybody. Want to find significance? Dwell on the cross. If you can't find it there, you won't find it anywhere.



Photo Credit: NCMallory