One of the last exercises in the griefshare curriculum asks us to write out "who I am now" with descriptive words....our new title, who we are relationally, emotionally, career/work, skills/interests/hobbies/passions, and spiritually-in God's eyes.
This doesn't come in the first few months of grief nor is it easy....we may be still muddling through the fogginess that death even struck or in denial that these things could be really happening to me, or that they actually did...we may have not come to those significant "first" events without our loved ones, or gone through clothes, paperwork yet...but it eventually does come...who am I?
If we are believers, our first identity is that of being a child of God, one with Christ....our most important and eternal one....
Galatians 3:26-29 So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
After the death of my husband, I could still say, I was a mother and a daughter as I still had children and an earthly father...then after my father passed away, I was now an orphan and a widow...that was a little harder to swallow...I was now a matriarch .....that felt rather old...dowager ....
But, in the mean time, I had moved, so no one knew who I was at all...no history except with my family and one young couple who knew us from another church years ago...so slowly, I am taking on a new identity...a new path...treading lightly...who am I really...
Many of my friends are walking down that same or a similar path...it is amazing to see how God is working differently in each person..using their lives to reach others...taking them to foreign counties, new places, new ministries, enhancing old ministries, new skills, healing broken relationships, healing emotions, deepening walks with God in the midst...strengthening body, minds and souls.....moving on, away from the stagnant.....drawing each of us closer to God in unique ways...and leaning harder on Him...
Thank YOU, God....none of this is a surprise to You....help me to find more and more of my identity in You...as your child...using your strengths...finding your paths for me...
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