Self Identification

Listen. There are some things I need to do. I need to go to the grocery store to pick up a few things before my mother-in-law flies into town today. I need to come face to face with my Bible study today. I need to wash my dishes and I need to finish writing the book that I need to start writing. But, instead, I'm sitting here thinking about how to explain to my personal online diary that anyone can read that I'm spending a lot of time thinking about how to reinvent myself these days. How to be the person that I feel like I am inside instead of the person I project.

The truth is, I'm not sure how I got here.

Here is the place where I'm responsible and I take care of business and I'm serious and prudent and cautious. That's me. On one hand, anyway. I care about what people think and I want to make them happy and please them and have everyone like me. Do you know what this has looked like over the years?

It's looked like my freshman year college roommate finally losing her ever loving mind and calling a meeting with our R.A. in which everything I'd ever done to annoy her was spilled out while I sat uncomfortably on my bed. I refused to engage--despite having a laundry list of things I could have said--because WHO DOES THAT? Who sits around telling someone what they hate as though some earthly good would come of it? Newsflash though, it's really rude to blow dry your hair two feet away from your sleeping roommate.

It's looked like sitting at a table with someone while they tell me all the ways I'm a terrible pastor's wife and I just nod and say that I'm sorry and I'll try to be better. Because I understand that whether or not I agree, that's the reality for the other person. Even if I don't think it's a fair assessment.

It's looked like being the bigger person a lot.

It's looked like getting cast as the stage manager because I could be trusted to handle it when I really wanted to audition even though I knew I probably wouldn't get a part. And now, as I gain a small fraction of confidence in my voice, I wonder why I didn't just say, "I want to try. I can sort of sing, actually."

It's biting my tongue. And I certainly know that the Lord calls me to certain standards. It's just that He doesn't call me to be a doormat. That's it in a nutshell. I've spent a lot of my life (outside of my home) being a doormat and not speaking my mind.

The truth is, I'm all the things I said I was. But I'm also adventurous and outgoing and energetic and a total spaz. I can be funny and fun and exciting when I'm not busy being reserved. It just takes a long time for me to let other people see this second side of me. So I've been sitting around trying to figure out a way to blend all that I am into one big personality that I'm happy with and not two separate ones that cannot coexist. And I've been trying to figure out a way to just say, "You know what? If you don't like me for who I actually am, I'm okay with that."

But can a pastor's wife BE okay with saying, "Like me or don't. Either way I still belong to Jesus."

And, when did I start identifying myself, first and foremost, as a pastor's wife?