Primary Identity

Monday, as I was driving up I-5 on my way to class, I was thinking about how I expected to be away from home for a total of about ten hours.  I thought about how the longest I had been away from my 11 month old daughter before that day was six hours. I was going to be nearly doubling that every day for the entire week.  I thought about how I was afraid that either I would miss her terribly or that I wouldn't miss her at all.  If I missed her terribly, those hours in class and travel would be torture. 

If I didn't miss her, what would that say about me as a mom?

And then I started thinking about my identity and what defined me.  I experienced a curious freedom as I remembered that my primary identity isn't as a mother, or as a wife, it is that of a theologian.  What I think about God and how I relate to him transcends all other relationships in my life.  I thought of and interacted with God before I met and married Cory, before I even thought about getting pregnant and having a child.  As significant as those relationships are to me--and they are very significant, they do not define me.  If I lost either Cory or LeYanna, I could loose my identity as a wife or as a mother...but I cannot loose my identity in relation to God. 

You can't either.  At your core you have beliefs about who God is, who you are, and how the two of you relate.  Whether you've taken the time to identify and sort out those beliefs or not...they define you.  They determine how you interact with others, how you live your life, what you value.  Your primary identity is that of a theologian.  If everything else in life changed.  If, God forbid, you lost everyone and everything that you loved...there would still be God and you'd still have to figure out how you interact with him. 

More than that, I remembered that I have a calling on my life.  I am passionate about the Old Testament and I'm passionate about loving broken people.  I'm compelled to make theology practical and to raise up and develop leaders.  God created me to do these things before, in spite of, and through my other relationships. In this season of life, the one where I have a little baby who doesn't sleep well, so I'm super-tired and feel like I have very little time, I know that how I live out my calling is going to look different than it did when I was single in college and different than it will when my daughter is older. God wants and expects me to take care of my family, but in his eyes, my identity goes beyond wife and mother.  He equips, empowers, and expects me to live my calling within the constraints of my context.

If you are a woman, especially if you are a women who is not [yet?] a wife or mother, do not sit around waiting for those relationships to come to give you value, discover who God has created you to be, what he wants you to do now. Understand your identity in him and your calling and be obedient to those things.  God may bless you with a husband and children, but his calling on your life comes before, in spite of,  and through those relationships.