Identity

I've been sort of a wreck lately.  So much is coming to light for me but as the darkness recedes, I'm blinded with questions.

  I'm probably an over-analyzer.  But I'm a woman.  And I think (hope?) most woman are probably this way.

I've been struggling through a bit of an identity crisis lately.  Although, I wouldn't have named it that before.  I was fighting, but not sure what I was fighting for.

I met with friends on Friday night.  Friends I hadn't seen in twenty years--since sixth grade.  These were girls  I'd played with and now for the first time  women I was having an adult conversation with.  It was a trip.  And it was eye-opening.  Because in their faces, I saw my own reflected back.  The little girl I once was.  And I wondered where she'd gone.  So much has been lost.  The core of who I am.

I know whose I am.  And I know, too, that when it all comes to the end that is all that will matter.  The strain then, is the here and now.  The me, face to face, with Jesus, Him knowing me beneath the false self, beneath  even the me I think I am.

And now it's all shedding.  And I'm straining to hear my name called out.  The name He has given me.

For too long I've let other people identify me.  I've allowed labels to be my identifier.

I've been someone's child, someone's friend, someone's wife.  I've been an alcoholic, bulimic, obsessive-compulsive.

But there's a child inside me who is the me I was created to be. And I want to find her.  And the only way to do that is to allow God to show me who I am in Him.

 "When we reached A.A., and for the first time in our lives stood among people who seemed to understand, the sense of belonging was tremendously exciting. We thought the isolation problem had been solved.  But we soon discovered that, while we weren't alone any more in a social sense, we still suffered many of the old pangs of anxious apartness.  Until we had talked with complete candor of our conflicts, and had listened to someone else do the same thing, we still didn't belong.  Step Five was the answer.  It was the beginning of true kinship with man and God." Twelve and Twelve, p. 57

Source: jupinfamily.blogspot.com via Nicole on Pinterest

How do I even know others if I do not know myself?  How can I see other's from God's eyes, when I can't see myself from His eyes?

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Life on Life's Terms

Acceptance is key.  This is what I kept hearing in my mind all day as I was at the Mayo Clinic.  Not as a pep talk but as a confirmation. 
I'd had myself entirely worked up earlier this week knowing that I had doctor's appointments scheduled all day for yesterday and today.  Then more this coming Tuesday.  Basically, I was just really ticked.  I did not want to spend all day for multiple days at the doctor's. Especially when I had more homework assigned for my class than usual.  
On Wednesday, I took pen to paper and wrote about it.  I was going to transfer it here.  I'm glad I didn't because I think it was pretty angry and complainy.  Somewhere in there though, I wrote about seeking gratitude with it all.  And I tried.  And it didn't readily come and I had a really crappy Wednesday.  
Then Thursday came and I got my butt down to the doctor's and it really wasn't that bad.  And I started focusing on acceptance.  Accepting that I have an issue which is going to require trips to the doctor.  Accepting that a lighter school day for the kids is not the end of the world.  Accepting that God's in control of it all anyway, so I might as well just go along for the ride.  

Source: jesustotheworld.tumblr.com via Nicole on Pinterest

So, then back again today.  First appointment at 9:30, the last at three.  Not only was it really not so bad today, it was actually kind of good.  God changed my perspective.  
The Mayo Clinic is located in a really beautiful deserty, mountainous area, especially pretty in the morning.  They play church bells throughout the day, sort-of giving the whole affair a spiritual retreat type of feel.  And they are on top of it and quick.  I had more free time in between appointments than I thought I would because once you check in to each appointment they take you right back.  And so I worked out two rough drafts for my class.  God provides.  
And I was thinking about acceptance and about how once I accomplished that, I felt as though my eyes were opened up to new insight.  
I began to realize certain things.  I realized that I had previously believed I had accepted my disease.  And in a way I have.  I've accepted it on certain levels and then there are other levels which I've denied, not wanting to let it win.  But in AA the first step is admitting we were powerless.  Admitting we are powerless transfers the power to the One who can transform.  
I probably can't capture all that I've felt today.  All that I've realized.   But I do know that acceptance is key.  The key to serenity.  Spiritual kindergarten here.  
"We are only operating a spiritual kindergarten in which people are enabled to get over drinking (self) and find the grace to go on living to better effect." AS BILL SEES IT, p. 95
And when I'm blinded by my inability to trust or to accept, I can't see what God has for me.
"...acceptance is the answer to all my problems today.  When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation-some fact of my life-unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.  Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God's world by mistake.  Until I could accept...life completely on life's terms, I cannot be happy.  I need to concentrate not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and in my attitudes."-BB p.417  

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