September Blog – Women's Ministry
Who Am I Now?
I was one way, and now I am another. What happened to me in-between was grief.
This is one of my favorite lines from “The Chosen”. Perhaps you are familiar with it.
The line was spoken by Mary Magdalene who was tormented by demons most of her life and then she met Jesus … and when Nicodemus asked her what happened, as she seemed completely transformed ... going from a ravaged mess, to a woman of peace and joy, she stated,
“I was one way, and now I am another and what happened to me in between … was Him [meeting Jesus]!”
Circumstances can change us. Maybe something changed you?
Grief changed me.
For a while, I saw myself as the “grieving mom of Ryan," my 20 year old son who fell to his death in a climbing accident. I was comfortable with my new identity. I felt like it honored him. It seemed like everywhere I went, someone knew who I was. Not because of me, but because of who Ryan was and how public our story was. I became comfortable with the notoriety because it kept the memory of my boy alive!!
I blogged, almost daily, about our grief journey and people seemed to read it and be inspired by it.
But then there came a time when fewer and fewer people knew of my story, and I had less and less opportunity to talk about him. I sensed the world was moving on and, I felt lost. I wondered who I was anymore if I wasn’t going to be known as the “grieving mom of Ryan"?
So, I did what I had been doing since the first day Ryan died. I dug deeper into my relationship with Jesus and deeper into the Word. I dug deeper into finding out who God created me to be, besides a grieving mom. I knew that wasn’t my only identity. After all, for 48 years I was something besides grieving!!
I had two children still living, a husband, a job and wonderful family and friends. Didn’t they need me to be something besides grieving? Didn’t God have something more for me than just grieving? I was also pretty sure Ryan would want me to be something more than just, grieving.
So, I dug into the scriptures, and I pressed into Him.
Who Was I Before?
I figured I should start at the beginning, and I went to Genesis.
Genesis 2:7 says. “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”
I am a living being. I am the breath of YAHWEH. I am God’s masterpiece that He intentionally designed. I am His intentional masterpiece.
I then read in Ephesians 2:10: “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance that we should walk in them.”
I am His creation, the product of the Master’s chisel. When He created me, He created me to do His good works that He prepared for me in advance before He gave me the breath of life … that I should walk out what He set before me.
I then read in Psalm 139:13-16: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, His eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in His book before one of them came to be.”
This passage is so full of the knowledge of who I was before; created and knit in my mother’s womb. Fearfully and wonderfully made and, the days ordained for me were written before one day even occurred in my life.
What does God say about His fearfully and wonderfully intended and ordained masterpiece?
Genesis 1:27 says, “God created human beings in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them.”
I am made IN HIS LIKENESS.
Genesis 1:31 says, “God saw all that He had made, and it was VERY GOOD.”
God thinks I am very good. That’s what He thinks of His masterpiece.
So let’s recap.
BEFORE my grief story I was:
- God’s intended masterpiece
- The breath of YAHWEH
- Fearfully and wonderfully made
- Intended and ordained
- Made in the likeness of GOD!
- Made VERY GOOD
This was my identity before my grief story. This is who we ALL were … before.
So now we might want to ask the question, “BUT WHY?”
Why did He create me?
Why would He create me if He knew I was going to have to walk such a hard road? Was this sorrow what He created me for?
Then I read John 15:1-11. Jesus is talking to His disciples:
“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.
“I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned. If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples. As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full."
There is a phrase that sticks out; ABIDE IN ME
He created us to abide in Him. To be in relationship with Him.
We were created to abide in His love, to be in relationship with Him. But a relationship is a choice! It isn’t a relationship if it is only one way.
Joshua 24 tells us that we will have to choose whom we will serve.
What God will we bow down to? What or whom will be more important than God? Will our “event” be more important than Him?
Romans 10 tells us if we call on the name of the LORD, we will be saved. When we choose that relationship, we will abide in His love and experience the relationship of all relationships.
- (John 15:5) Jesus becomes the TRUE Vine and we are the branches.
- (I Corinthians 6:15-19) Jesus becomes the head and we are His body.
- (I Peter 2:4-5) Christ becomes the foundation and we are the living stones joined to the foundation.
Do you see the picture that I just spoke? When we choose a relationship with Him, He encompasses all of us.
From head – to toe.
- Jesus is the head; we are His body.
- Jesus is the vine, we are the branches
- Jesus is the Foundation; we are the living stones.
From head to toe, He covers us.
For most of us, deep communion with Christ comes when we reach the end of ourselves. This is when we are poised to know Him in the deepest way.
In grief, I was poised to know what it really means to abide in Him.
I came to the end of myself. I came to the end of what I could do on my own. I learned first hand how little I could control. Life and death slipped through my fingers. So at the end of me, I was poised to find Him!
His deep desire is to be in relationship with us as we abide in Him. He created us for relationship. Not because He needs us to be complete. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are complete without us. But because He wants us to experience His deep, abiding love so that, He can walk out His glory through us.
I want to point something out here.
The desire for relationship comes before, the circumstances of our life. In Ephesians 1 it says He chose us before the creation of the world. Before the world was created, He wanted to be in relationship with us. It had nothing to do with anything we had done, but simply because He wanted to be in relationship with His creation.
He created us, He breathed the breath of life in us, desiring that we be in relationship with Him so that He could walk out His glory through our lives.
Our Identity comes from Him, as a child of the King when we choose to be in relationship with Him … not from our circumstances.
In 1 Peter 2:9, we read, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.”
Because I chose Him as the one whom I will serve, I am royalty (the daughter of the King). I was created to declare His praises for bringing me out of the darkness and into the light. I am now a window to His glorious light.
So, when I look at my identity, I see that from before my first breathe I was created as His masterpiece to glorify Him. When I received Him as my Savior I became His daughter, the daughter of the King. That’s who I will always be. That hasn’t changed. But what has changed is the depth of my relationship with Him because of my grief story. I have been given the opportunity to declare and walk out His Glory!
The event, grief, isn’t the headline. Jesus remains the headline and our identity comes solely from Him and through Him.
Who am I now? I am the Daughter of the King, created to be in relationship with Him and allow my story to declare His glory.
- Gail Wahl