In Finding Your Identity...

The biggest lesson God is teaching me in finding my own identity and in understanding who I am as a person is that it’s not always about me. This was a shocking realization because for so long I had been under the mindset that if I just better understood who I was then I’d be better able to handle the world around me, not let it have such a strong affect on me, and find my confidence to stand within it.


In finding our own identity, we often only find selfishness. It becomes all about me, my wants, my desires, my needs and my world grows smaller and smaller as I become the center of its universe. If you can take a step back, focus on someone else for a moment, you will then learn that who you are grows more in the light of those around then in the spotlight of your own stage. Too much light does not allow for growth, it blinds us to all that is around us, and it magnifies our own flaws. While the spot light seems warm and inviting, it is a lonely place. Character is developed in adapting, growing, and responding to situations beyond our own control. It is in better understanding others that we can then understand ourselves.

My attitude has been adjusted, my focus shifted, and I am learning that finding my own identity means less about me and more about those God has put around me. It’s not always about me. ..and for that I am thankful!

The Deep Desire for Change...

Change is in the air…

Change is going to come…

Change is just around the corner…

We put our hope in change, in the mindset that things will not always be like this. We often think that if pain or hardship or uncomfortable circumstances come, that God will be quick to bring a change into our lives to rid us of our pain, to take us from our hardship, and to change our circumstances. How often do we find ourselves in a battle with God because His timing is not our timing and because we get frustrated that He hasn’t brought the change that we prayed desperately for. I’ve had circumstances change overnight, some in mere hours, but then there have been hard times that have lasted for months and even years. I found that I battled with my belief in God over how quickly he delivered me from those hardships.

The lesson that I leaned in all of it is, that more often than not, the change that God brings into our lives is a change of heart and not of circumstance.

If we ran from every pain, every hardship, every unpleasant circumstance—we’d spend our lives running. God, however, teaches us, grows us, and helps us to become mature not only in our faith but in our strengths and weaknesses. When we change what is on the inside then we can see what is around us differently. More often than not, the problem is not in the circumstances around us, but in our own hearts. God is a God of strength and growth and while He promises that if we ask we shall receive, he also states that His ways are not our ways and that we often do not even know what to ask for. God pushes us beyond our comfort zone, changing us from the inside out.

So next time you pray for change, remember that more often than not, the change will begin in you.

All I need is You...All I am is Yours...

Lately I feel God telling me,

“Let others Be.”  “Your story is yours alone and is not affected by the stories of those around you.”  “Only you allow yourself to be affected and drawn in to these emotions, but my calling is specific for you and you alone…let others be and focus on being who I created You to be.”  “When the chaos surrounds, I am all you need.” 

“I do not call you unfortunate,” said the Large Voice.
"Don’t you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?” said Shasta.
“There was only one lion,” said the Voice
“What on earth do you mean? I’ve just told you there were at least two the first night, and.."
“There was only one: but he was swift of foot.”
“How do you know?”
“I was the lion.” And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”
“Then it was you who wounded Aravis?”
“It was I.”
“But what for?”
“Child,” said the Voice, “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”
--C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy, Chapter 11