Who am I?

I know the title sounds cliché but it is a question I’ve asked myself numerous times and I’m sure you have too. I want to share with you a little bit of my journey with finding my answer to that question. I will be upfront with you that at times I do need to be reminded of the answer.

I want to take you back to when I was living in Michigan and it was after the births of my last 3 children (2006, 2008, 2010) that I started to lose sight of myself. During those years there were a multitude “life” events such as foreclosing on our first home where our first 5 children grew up, living with my mother in a much smaller place until we found a bigger place. There were other events but too much to go into but you get the gist. Needless to say I was in a bad place physically, emotionally, and mentally.

It had gotten so bad that on my 45 minute drive to work on the highway I would check out the trees and bridges to see which one would be a good spot to hit and kill myself. Yes, that is what I said I had suicidal thoughts and no I did not go see a doctor. Was I depressed? Absolutely, my thought process was that my husband and children would be better off without me. I’m no good at being a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, and whatever else. I would not be missed at all, they don’t need me because all I do is mess everything up. When I would arrive home from work I would just go to my room and if I could sleep I would. I forget what the label is but I was basically functioning normal until I arrived home then I would let the “real” (what it was at that time) come out. My poor husband and children took the brunt of my outbursts when it happened.

As I mentioned I was still functioning “normally” meaning I still went to work, I still went to church, and I even socialized when I did not want to. I remember one day saying to a family member that I also worked with that I felt like I didn’t know who I was anymore, what is it that I like or don’t like, I truly felt lost in that sense. Every time I wanted to give up, there was this small still voice that said, “no do not give up, take another step.” I do want to interject here which I had forgotten to mention earlier is that I also dealt with very low self-esteem (maybe one day I’ll share that story) so that played a huge part in everything I was going through. Did I listen to that still small voice, absolutely because I knew it was God telling me to do so.

I hated the way I was feeling and I knew it had to change so I started taking steps to change it. This included signing up for online devotions (Proverbs 31 Ministries = life saver), writing verses from the bible down on notecards, reading books, and of course went to prayer. I believe that was the first step which applies to anything, one has to admit that there is something wrong.  Second thing is to actually want to change. The change has to come from within no one can force anyone to change. Some days I would have to repeat a verse to myself repeatedly, especially 2 Timothy 1:7. Slowly but surely I could tell that I was changing, I wasn’t thinking about which tree or bridge would be best to die from. I was applying what I was reading from the books to my life and again slowly I started to see “light”. Did I know “who I was” yet? No, not yet.

To be honest I think it was probably a year into integrating these steps into my life that my answer came. It was when I was reading a devotion, cannot remember the title or anything about it but I know it was from Proverbs 31 Ministries, it was like a light bulb just clicked on. It was so clear to me, like it was a marquee with the lights flashing, I could not ignore it. It was, “You are my child, you are who I say you are, not what the world says you are, not even what you say you are.” I am a child of God, that is who I am first and all my other titles (wife, mother, etcetera) falls into place. I am who God says I am, “…fearfully and wonderfully made…” (Psalm 139:14) There is a reason for me being on this earth, and I’m going to continue taking those steps to walk in the path he has set before me trusting him completely.

As a side note to the self-esteem issues, these pictures of me were taken by Britney Ettling and wanted to take this time to thank her for helping me break down this wall that I built when it comes to taking pictures.