discover

I spent time in therapy some 20 years ago. My life was falling apart. I was too involved in ministry, not understanding how some childhood experiences were impacting my present life, and struggling in my marriage. Counseling was a painful process but one of the most beneficial things I ever did. I saw counseling as “working” on myself so that I could become more of who I was meant to be.

Then, a couple of years ago, I read something that made me think of it differently. The author said that we don’t become more of who we were meant to be….but we discover who is already there. That may sound like splitting hairs but it was an important distinction for me.

It meant that I was not ‘growing’ into who God had made me to be. I was always that person…it was just covered by all this stuff. My therapy, not to mention the emotional work I do now, is a discovery process. How did God design me? Who did He create me to be? How has the Fall impacted me? How have my perceptions of the world and of myself been warped by the entrance of sin into the world…into my world?

Who I am, under all the trappings of living in this world, is who God created me to be. I cannot be ‘more’ of that person…but I can discover parts of her that I didn’t know were there. I hope this self-discovery of who I am in God’s image continues until I am standing in His presence.

Today, consider who you are in Him. Reflect on how He made you and your journey of ‘discovery’ of who that is. If there are huge things in the way that you cannot move through yourself, consider getting the help you need to discover as much as you can.

Grace and Peace,
Deb