I know who I am.

I will never forget the moment I was on stage, playing piano singing the words 'I know who I am, I know who I am, I know who I am,  I am yours, I am yours and you are mine."  Even while singing the words I knew by heart, I was having a crisis.  I was singing one thing, but my heart was saying "who am I? and "I don't know who I am anymore." I really didn't know who I was anymore, and that for me was terrifying.   You see as a performer, I adapt to my surroundings.   I am what I need to be in a situation, and my life was standing in a hole that needed to be filled at any given moment.   Many people could never figure me out, because the truth is, I never was consistent in who I was.  I was just what I needed to be in that season, I said the right things, did the right things and performed to the level of expectation that was placed before me.  The issue being, I didn't know who I was, I was lost trying to please people.  As I have told you before I am a recovering people pleaser and I struggle with disappointing people to the point of altering who I am.  I still get anxiety when I have to tell someone something they don't want to hear. 
    It began the journey of questioning 'who am I?" My life was so busy, my plate was so full, I never could pause long enough to question my very existence.  The fact that I had a crisis in the middle of a song was God's gentle way of starting my journey of knowing who I am in Christ.    I had to first pause for a second and take a good look at my roles I was holding.  I had three kids, two toddlers, and one preteen.  I had a full-time job as a home health nurse, working 40-60 hours a week, never really taking a day off, I served in church no less than 8-10 hours a week.  I was doing all the right things on the check off list and I was exhausted, I was weary, I was burdened.  Taking a good look at my life required me to make some slow changes that I have made over the last five years and God has revealed to me who I am.
     As we begin 2018 I want to ask you that question: Do you know who you are?  and do you know who God says you are? In my generation, we were hyped by sermons that said 'You are overcomers, you are the head and not the tail, you are a fearless generation."  But that was in my younger years and somewhere I got lost in being a mom, working as a nurse, and filling in at church.  I had to first breakup with the mindset of letting my roles say who I was.  I traded in fearless for fearful, and rebel for a control freak.  I lost who I was and God was going to help me find her.  But in order to do that the first thing I had to do was surrender to his ways in my life.   I prayed "Father help me know who I am in you."   while simultaneously praying "Break my heart for what breaks yours."   As we walk through 2018 I want to share with you tips and tools I have learned along the way.  I do know who I am now, and I know who I am called to be, but I have had to go through the process of letting Him tell me, not everyone else.  So the first step today is to pray a simple prayer, and as we go weekly on our journey I pray that you discover who you are. 
Father God, I pray through Jesus that you show me who I am in you.  I ask you, through Jesus to come into my life, and I give you Lordship, I turn away from everything that isn't you and I bow to you.  Holy Spirit Equip me today for the purpose of your kingdom.  Amen.