who I am is not what I do
I am not sure when it started and how it started but since I can remember I always payed attention to details. I like to work hard, think hard and analyze everything I do. I was accused of been perfectionist many times. As the years went by I started to enjoy certain labels without realizing I was making of those labels my identity. I am a mother, a restaurateur, a successful business owner and I am married. My walls of self-protection began to fall out when my husband and I separated. All of sudden I was not a married woman anymore and funny enough nothing mattered to me as much. What mattered was my children’s pain, my pain and what I would do now without my “labels.”
My worth was in what I had and in what I did. I went into this crazy set of motions to become a better person, a better mother and a better wife even if my husband and I were separating. I wanted to prove to myself that I was good. My worth was in what I did and how I did everything. The more I pile into my plate the better I felt about myself, at the same time feeling very resentful of having so much to do. Even to God I wanted to show how good I was because if I could earn God’s approval He would bless me.
How most people deal with so much pain and so much changes without God in their lives.I was blessed to push forward and hold on to read my bible and take one step at the time, nevertheless I had a hard time sitting and listening to what God was telling me. My desire to be in control and to do things through my “works” prevented God from acting to help me. He can’t act if am acting.
I had a serious ski accident on Christmas 2008 in which made me stop physically from moving from point A to point B. It made me STOP. I couldn’t walk or run. I couldn’t take care of my children the way I did. I couldn’t work. I had to rely on God completely and entirely. I took some time off to go to Brazil for the knee surgery. In Brazil my mother could take care of me and I wouldn’t need to deal with snow and crutches.
I think that ski accident was the turning point in my life. My mother and I got closer, I had to walk like a turtle I couldn’t work out. I had to slow down and in turn I received peace and joy in ways that I couldn’t explain. I understood my divorce was going to turn into blessing and that I was not “the wife, the mother, the business owner”. I was me.
Nothing I do will never be who I am. I am what I am and that is enough. If today I mess up or forget something ordecide to not do something I am still wonderful and beautifully made, the apple of God’s eyes, the child of the King of Kings and no one can take that away. It is liberating to be set free. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. John 8:32
Once I learned who He was, is and will always be I learned who I am without the need to analyze it, think about it or prove it. I just know it and that’s enough! Some days I need to read what I just wrote to be reminded that I am loved just because I am!