Who am I? (guest post by Sherry Kettner)

Who are you?  I have been asked this a lot lately.

I have been asked it in work, outside of work, and even my counselor has asked me this questions.  Each time I have clearly stated my disdain for the question.  “I hate that question”, has been the actual statement.

As the question was asked more and more and it was a counseling homework assignment, I found I had to answer it somehow.

For counseling this picture is all that I could come up with on how to do this in any capacity.

I had to write out the three places that I feel that I reside as a person and the roles and action that I take on in each of those places. It so happened to be that in each place I am called by a different name.  It was good for me and it was very helpful however, it still didn’t answer this core piece of who I really am.  It was a good place to start but not the answer.

Usually the answer to why anyone hates that question is, “well I don’t know who I am.”

For me that statement rings true only in moments but not in my whole existence and being.

That question spurs something in me that actually says deep within my soul and being that I do know exactly who I am and that who I am meant to be is something mighty and good.  In my depth of soul I not only want to claim it in my thoughts and emotions but claim it as my true right, claim it as my honorable place to stand securely, and to claim it on such a level that it answers why I breathe.   I want the knowledge and truth of who I really am to be the very driving force that gives each breath purpose. 

So how do I claim something I cant even seem to come close to finding?!? 

I had to begin to not focus on the answer but look at the question it’s self.  

In church today the pastor who was speaking told a story about his daughter and how a few days prior to this she has done something she shouldn’t and he said to her, what’s wrong with you.  He felt that the Lord said to him after saying this, “tell her what is right about her.”

That is the very thing that often I don’t know about myself.

What is right about me?

That is why I hate the question so much.

How can I know who I am if all that I know is everything that is not right with me?  

I can give you a list a mile long about all that I feel is wrong with me and that I don’t do well and if at the end of that list you were to add everything up it would all sum up to not feeling enough and having no idea how to find what is right about me.

When I am asked who are you I want to be able to write and say all the things that I want to be and all I hope that I am.  The truth however is that I don’t know that I really believe that I AM any of them.

I know what I am good at doing.

*  I am good at my job.

*  I am good at working with people.

* I am a good counselor.

* I am good at sports.

* I can write.

* I am a good friend.

* I love the Lord.

* I love doing ministry.

* I love serving others.

* I love teaching.

However, none, not one, of these things is who I am in my core. Who I am might be the very things that make me good at these things but they are not who I am. 

So I am going to begin with seeking out with the Lord and the good godly counsel in my life the answer to the question what is right about me.

I believe that this is going to have to start with restoration. This is starting with allowing the lord to restore me and restore my vision of myself.

I’m reading Becoming Myself by Staci Eldredge and one statement she makes in this book I believe is where I have to start in finding out Who I am. “The voice of shame says, I basically hate me; I need to get rid of me.  The voice of discipline says, I’ve got to fix me, because me is not good.  God says, I love you, let me restore you.” 

So, Who am I?  

* I am a chosen daughter who at my core truly is lovely, beautiful, not forgotten and enough in every way.

*  am a lost lover who is seeking and crying out to the lover of my soul to reach his hand out to catch me before I walk off the cliff of shame and discipline.

*  I am a follower who after being saved from the cliff’s edge is lead into a beautiful and passionate love relationship that is restoring the knowledge in my heart, mind and soul of who I truly am.

* I am a sojourner who is on a  journey to know through my Father’s eyes the truths of the word, that I am the light of the world, that I am loved, and that I am His and He delights over me far more than I could ever know.

* I am a saved one who’s journey will not only bring me to a place to be able to claim who I am but to claim with such certainty that who He has made me to be in the depths of my being is good and right.

* I am one who’s very core that was created by Christ and is now filled with Christ is the driving force of each breath.

* I am one who’s  full of purpose because of who I am even if I can’t always see it, feel it or answer it.