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Last month a perpetual back injury reared its ugly head and left me bedridden for a few days. Like many, I don’t enjoy being incapacitated. But for nearly a week, a handful of medical ailments kept me from normal activities, like caring for my family or working on my book.
Because I had so much time to lay around, I found myself struggling with things I thought were long buried. I’m a mom of four elementary age boys. Until September, I worked full-time. Now I work part-time as a writer. I’m a wife, daughter, and friend. I thrive on to-do lists. There are always multiple plates spinning, until they’re not because my body gives out on me. And then I’m left wondering who I am without the tasks.
This is something I’ve long wrestled with. When I got married, I struggled with my new relationship that took me away from things I loved—like seminary. Who was I if I wasn’t a seminary student? When we moved to Little Rock to plant a church, we were in the middle of our infertility journey. I thought I’d have a baby by then, instead I was figuring out work and making a life for ourselves in a new city. Who was I if I wasn’t a mom? Then I had the long waited for babies (not one, but two), and my whole life was upended. I had what I wanted, but I never could account for my daily activities. Five long weeks in the NICU led to months of no sleep and feeding issues. Doctors’ appointments and therapy services. Then another miscarriage and more babies. I was a mom, but I missed my old life. Did my new life matter if I didn’t feel productive every day? I did what any writer does and processed my thoughts through writing, and ultimately a book on the value of unpaid, unseen work.
Then my kids went to school, and I entered a new phase of identity crisis. Who am I if there are no kids home during the day? What do I do now? I went back to work, first part-time, then full time. The angst only continued.
I don’t think it’s wrong to define ourselves by what we do during the day. Jen Wilkin has written helpfully about this elsewhere particularly related to motherhood. She explains that our identity is skewed when we place our hopes on the achievement, status, or good behavior. But if we find ourselves conflicted over our changing seasons, perhaps it’s because we are loving the season as God calls us to. We’re blooming where we’re planted, and ripping out a flower from the ground always messes up the garden. I grieved leaving seminary because I loved studying. I still remember when we decided Daniel would finish and I wouldn’t (until over a decade later), Daniel said, “It doesn’t make sense. You’re the one who loves it so much.” We were made to love and thrive where God has us, so it makes sense that our hearts would break when we leave a thing we love—even if the thing we’re stepping into instead is an equally lovable thing, like motherhood or marriage. How much more will it hurt if we’re losing something we love, only to be met with uncertainty or stagnancy?
Sometimes the transition or change in identity is part of a normal process of life—like children going to school or getting married. Other times, it’s because of suffering or distress—like illness or a job loss. The impact to our psyches is often the same—Who am I without this normal rhythm? How do I make sense of life in a new normal?
I suppose some people find change invigorating, though I’ve never been one of them. For me, the balance has been in determining what feeling is owing to legitimate grief over the end of something and what is owing to a misplaced identity. Sometimes the distinction isn’t readily apparent.
In the most disorienting moments of change or disruption, I find myself reciting a phrase that has become a constant companion during every season of change—from the NICU to the unemployment to the hospital bed—“God doesn’t measure my productivity.” He’s not looking at my task list and weighing the merits of its completeness. He sees the completed chapter I wrote two weeks ago and says “Well done, good and faithful servant,” in the same way that he says that when I’m so overwhelmed by change that all I can do is take a nap. The nap is my completed task list, that’s it—and he’s not disappointed. He sits beside me in a bed when I’m sick and is pleased with me, not because I’m getting things done, but because he’s done it all for me in Christ. He was with me in the infertility, when I didn’t have what I wanted in the same way that he was with me in the NICU when my arms were fuller than I could have dreamed.
Who am I in the high moments and the low? Who am I when I have no status and no work product? Who am I by the sick kid’s bed and in the office at work?
I’m an image bearer, that’s it. That’s enough.
I could go to my grave tomorrow and he would welcome me with open arms—not because I bring things with me, but because my value is fixed by the one who paid the price for me.
A woman’s life is often filled with many twists and turns, many transitions. With each one, we’re left asking, “Who am I?” When one season ends and a new one begins, we don’t lose or gain value when we shed an old role or work. We grieve and process, yes, but our identity stands firm—no matter what work we do, or don’t do on any given day.
We grieve the losses, sit in the sea of change, and wait for the next task to begin. God’s not done with us.
Thank you, Courtney. You have no idea how much I needed to read this at this very moment. Keep praying, listening, thinking, and writing. God is using you in a powerful way for His Kingdom.