Tuesday, December 1, 2015

"Who am I?"



I woke up today and felt ready to head back for the last few weeks of school. I had a great thanksgiving weekend away from the realities of life and I got to just sit, chill and not worry about assignments or finals. Even though I didn't want to leave Sacramento, I was looking forward to the next few torturous weeks of school that I had to endure because I just wanted winter break to come already. By some miracle, I had some time to spare before I had to head to school today. So, I decided to sit down and I spent some time with God. As I got further and further into my journalling, I realised that I was starting to go deeper into the things that were bothering me but did not really want to address. So many questions began going through my mind but the one question that kept repeating itself was, "who am I?" 

I'll be honest, I've been struggling with my identity. Yes, I know that I am a child of God and that I shouldn't have to struggle with these kinds of things but I'm still human, I have my doubts and fears. It may come as a surprise but those close to me know that I struggle a lot with my self-worth and often put myself down. I won't go too much into it for now, but it's just something that I've been constantly going through. Every time I struggle with something that has to do with my identity, God tends to show up and remind me of who I am. Today, it wasn't any different.

As I said, I kept questioning who I was. Why? For one, the things that I was once confident about was in a way, being taken away from me. I thought my skills weren't sufficient enough and it felt like I was no longer needed. In my mind, I was being replaced. I was also feeling hurt because in certain situations, credit wasn't being given where credit was due. I know I shouldn't expect anything when I give, but a part of me just always hoped that I'd at least get a bit of recognition or gratitude from whoever I'm doing a favour for. After all, it's a basic thing to say thank you or to give credit where credit was due, right?

Anyway, I went about my whole day feeling down and unsure of myself. I wasn't in any mood to be social. I couldn't wait to get home and to just be by myself but God's always funny, isn't He? I got home and everyone happened to be home too so I had to be social. Then, I decided to take a nice, hot bath to escape from everything but I was interrupted for a bit. Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming anyone. I actually find it quite funny right now. But at that time, man, it was hard. I wasn't getting what I wanted. On top of that, I was also developing a headache and was strongly considering skipping this meeting that I had to attend in the evening. I somehow ended up at that meeting in the end and I'm glad I chose to be present.

I once went through this tough week where I struggled to feel God. I was so tired and stressed up that I just wanted time to myself. I had so many weekly commitments to attend to and I just wanted to skip out on them but for some unknown reason, I chose to attend all those meetings even though I was quite reluctant. I found, however, that with every meeting I attended, God spoke to me and He slowly revealed more and more of Himself to me. It was crazy but it was happening. By the end of the week, I had been able to feel God once again. In fact, I felt Him so strongly at church that Sunday and it just so happened that the theme for that week was about perseverance. That's when I knew that it was God and that I wasn't alone that whole week. It didn't matter that I didn't feel Him, He was still there. He never left. "Faith > feelings." I will always remember this line that I heard from a sermon sometime ago. That's exactly what got me through that week and I'm glad that I held onto that.

Back to today, I made the same exact decision. I chose to attend the meeting even though I wanted to use my headache as an excuse and to just rest at home. In the end, the same exact thing happened as the previous time too. God showed up! I wasn't expecting anything and I definitely wasn't expecting for God to speak to me about my situation so soon but that's exactly what happened. I'm not quite sure what happened but during a time of prayer, I popped into one of my staff leader's mind. Later, he told me what he felt so strongly about. To my surprise, it had to do with what I was struggling with today. I was just mind blown at that point. God was reassuring me of my identity again and in a way, He was showing me the bigger picture. In my own blindness, I couldn't see that God had blessed me with multiple skills that I could use in different areas. I was so focused on the little details and thought that I was no longer significant that I couldn't see the bigger picture. My insecurities tried to take over once again but God wasn't having any of that!

I'm blessed because God placed certain people in my life to help me see things that I myself can't see. Whenever I'm in doubt of my own abilities, God uses the people around me to reassure me and remind me of the things that I fail to see. I'm ever grateful to Him for His faithfulness towards me. God is real, He is so SO real. It's amazing.

You give life, You are love
You bring light to the darkness
You give hope, You restore
Every heart that is broken
Great are You, Lord.

Love, Ainsley.

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