How many times have we heard {or even asked} that question, meeting someone for the first time at a party, a charity event, a church dinner? It comes almost immediately after the exchange of names and could determine how the rest of that conversation, maybe even that relationship, is going to go. That’s not the only defining question people ask us. In college, it’s, “What’s your major?” As a parent, it’s, “How many kids do you have?” {And before you have kids, it's often, “How long have you been married? When are you going to have kids?”} But no matter how it sounds, it all boils down to this: “What do you do?” Asking these questions seems like a quick way to get to know someone, but it’s really a quick way to place them in a box, placing them in and making lightning fast assumptions about who they are, based on what they do.
When all our kids left home {our daughter in June then both boys in September in 2010}, and then when I quit my job, I experienced a major identity crisis. Though I looked pretty much the same on the outside, all the things, all the doing, that I’d thought made up my essence were missing. It was as if I felt like I must somehow justify my existence, my worth.
We are not defined by what we do ~ or don’t do! What we do is not who we are!
Blessings
1 comments:
I can so identify with this post. I allowed myself to be defined by who our kids were becoming and when they all left home, I had a difficult time. It is so much easier to define ourselves by what we do, than just being content in who God made us to be.
being grateful for where God has us be right now is and open to His leading is a good place to be.
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