Ever since last fall The Lord has been working on me discovering my true identity. There were personal qualities revealed to me that made me start questioning who I am, what characteristics I inherited, why I am the way I am, amongst many other attributes that seemed to particularly be a quandary to me. These topics, along with being out of the workforce for so long, sparked something in me to have an innate desire to seek God out while I was left in the abyss of pondering the perplexity of my personality traits and physical features.
One thing I have been able to recognize about the culture of our country (God bless the U.S.A.) is we tend to attach what we do for work with who we are as a person. In that, it seems common to also cast judgment on whether or not we deem someone successful solely by their job title. For example, I have a friend that was a physics major as a prestigious university but has found his passion in being a whitewater raft guide (though he obviously can still correlate the focus of his education to such career), which has brought about backlash. Because others may perceive that particular job title as less than distinguished, they measure his affluence as less than optimal based on their own personal judgment of his background and education. Meanwhile, when I say I work as a flight attendant I get quite an opposite response; people seem to envy my career. In that, I was caught up in the luxuriousness of not only how spoiled I was with having the ability to basically travel the world for free, but also being wrapped up in the embodiment of identifying myself as such: "A Flight Attendant". Conversations seemed central to trips I'd taken for work, experiences I had in my career, and where I vacationed as of late. It seemed like I was no longer "Kat", stripped of what made me me, and a rather just a flight attendant.
After having to step into this season of waiting, or "pruning period", God reminded me that there is only one characteristic of myself that matters: I am a child of God. Reminding myself of this was something I had to seek out on a regular - and at times, daily - basis. I would (and still do) constantly and consistently repeat mantras such as:
"You are a daughter of the Lord most high."
"You are a child of the King."
"Your identity is in Christ and Christ alone."
Speaking these words over myself allowed me to cease putting my identity in other things not of God, ultimately allowing me to recognize how I was operating in a form of idolatry. And yes, the first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Exodus 20:3, KJV), relates to this, in that allowing our career title to take precedence over God himself is putting another god (lowercase "g" - a reference for all my Marvel fans from Star-Lord's father) before Him. God truly had to strip me of everything in my life that I was labeling myself as other than His daughter. And I am so grateful at what He has revealed, because being His daughter is ultimately what matters and supersedes above everything else. Literally nothing else matters but are rather all characteristics that make us uniquely different.
As a correlation for all my foodies out there, I think about cooking chicken (which I don't even partake in anymore as I don't eat meat) and how there are so many ways you can cook it, along with a multitude of seasonings and sauces you can use to add flavor to it. It's the same way with us. We ultimately are chicken (God's children), but once we add some spice (characteristics/attributes), we are transformed in ways that make us special and stand out. There is never going to be two pieces that are identical - one will be larger than another; one will have a tad more flavor than another; one will cook differently than another. But at the end of the day, it doesn't ultimately change what we are and where our identity lies.
"See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" (1 John 3:1, NIV)
"Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God" (John 1:12, NIV)
"For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:26, NLT)
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