My Identity

This picture has nothing to do with my blog post, but I thought I looked Super Cute and you might like to see it!

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

For months I have been deciding whether or not to write this blog, but finally decided that vulnerable is sometimes an ok place to be, even if it’s sometimes a hard place to be. I write this blog with an open heart, wanting to share somewhat of an evaluation over the last year, since our transition and move to Africa.

I have always thought myself to be a committed person, willing to work hard, willing to learn and try new things. I have always thought I was good at time management, able to take on multiple things at one time, dedicated to what I do and always doing it with confidence. I had a good full-time job that I was going to every Monday through Friday, 8-5, for 5 years. This was a job that I was really good at and that I enjoyed getting up and going to. I was committed to my job; I worked plenty of overtime, because sometimes, my job just needed a little extra attention. I felt good about this time in my life, because I was needed. I was relied on, and if I missed work for any reason, people knew it.

As soon as we came to Rwanda, we didn’t know a lot about what our first months would hold, but we knew that we were coming for specific roles; Blake as IT and Communications Manager, and me as the one taking over the field finances. Immediately after coming, I naturally spent some weeks going shopping, learning the area, buying things needed for the house and setting up our house to feel a little more like a home for us. After a few weeks, the discussion began with our boss, that while Blake’s role was forming, and he was quickly traveling to set up the computer labs, I was suddenly feeling like it was time to begin learning my job with the field finances. After multiple conversations with Chanshi, I became aware that while I would become needed for this job, currently this was not the time for the job to be passed onto me, and it would probably be at least 6 months before we would have the conversation again about the timing and transition of the finances.

The next 6 months became the most difficult transition I could have ever imagined. Difficult, because not only were we learning to be and live in a completely different culture, but also, because after coming from a full-time job, I expected to be busy, I expected to be needed in my role on a regular, everyday basis. I went through a complete identity crisis, realizing for a time, my role was going to be transitioned to a housewife, instead of a job out of the house, with regular 8-5 hours. During these months, I discovered how much I put my identity in my job! My job title WAS my identity, it WAS my role, and my job WAS who I had become.

I went through times of deep emotion, as I felt as though my role was not important. How is my coming to Africa to clean my house, do laundry and make food going to benefit anyone in Africa? How is my role as a housewife going to better the field finances? How is my time reading or writing going to win souls for Christ? All of these questions were running through my mind each day. I was slowly meeting people, we slowly began to build relationship, but still I felt underutilized.

At the prompting of a friend I had met in Kigali, we decided to work our way through the book Purpose Driven Life. This was a time of deep spiritual growth, as well as a time of hurt, as it all came to surface at once. Some of the things that we began talking about was our identity, and why are we here. During this time, is when I began to discover, that my identity was in my job. Instead of making myself see the value of what I do and why I do something, I was putting my value in my job title. I felt as through, I was only valuable if I was working outside of the home. I slowly had to learn to put my identity in Christ. This book worked me through ways of doing this. Can you glorify God even in the house? Can you bring honor to God in all your work, even if it’s doing dishes? Everyday, I was trying to get a little deeper in the word, try and learn more about Christ, and his person. Learning who I was, as Christ created me to be, not as I visualized who I thought I was supposed to be. Thank you to Blake, as he stuck by me and talked through the things I was going through. Trying to also help me discover, that it was easy for me to go to work, easy for me to find value in myself outside of the home, but helping me learn how just as valuable my time is in the home. Especially, as Blake and I continue to learn to be a couple, he has to be able to rely on me, so his work can be accomplished for the Church. These are just brief feelings of the time I spent discovering who I am in Christ, instead of who I am in my job title.

Now there are still some times that I tend to find I get a little lazy, realizing that it is still sometimes a struggle to be in the home. However, a year later, I have learned to appreciate my time in the home. I have learned to actually ENJOY working in my house. I tend to enjoy cooking, and I know how important it can be, especially now that we have many of our District Superintendents coming and going as visitors to my home on a regular basis. While this year has been the most difficult year in many ways, I would not ask for any of it to change. If I had never left my comfortable 8-5 everyday job, or if I had been given the field finances from the beginning, I would have never had the time to discover all of the things that I found about myself and be able to claim my identity in the God who created me. In the long run, I AM more valuable to the field, and to our ministry in Africa, as a person whose identity is in Christ, and I am grateful for having learned this!