Who am I?

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?” (Psalm 8:3-4, NIV)

 

Have you ever felt lost?  It’s a scary, dark and lonely feeling. It can creep in at any moment and leave you feeling paralyzed and helpless!  Once, when I was a small boy, I lost sight of my mother and father at a department store in my hometown.  It wasn’t a big store by any means, but for a few moments I felt alone and abandoned. 

 My parents were shopping for shoes.  What child wants to look boring shoes when there were shiny new toys one aisle over?  Not me!  I did what any red-blooded young lad would do… I left my folks and went to look at toys!  I knew I wasn’t going to be gone too long.  They would never even know I had slipped away.  I would simply slip away, browse and come immediately back!  No harm, no foul, right?  Wrong!

When I left the toy aisle and returned to where my parents were, I soon realized they were gone!  My quick escape to Toyland resulted in me not knowing where my parent had gone!  What if they had left the store?  For all I knew my parents had found the items they were looking for and went home.  I did what any young boy would do when facing the notion of being abandoned in the middle of The Met.  I cried…and peed myself!  (Side Note – I was a child, people!  Cut me some slack!)

There have been times throughout my adult life that I have felt just as lost and alone as I did that night.  No!  I don’t pee my pants but the same feeling of loss and confusion can be felt!  Like the younger me, I find myself reaching out to some source of comfort and normalcy only to become more lost and alone.  The loneliest times were the times when I felt like I had lost myself and my purpose in life. 

There have been days I have looked at myself in the mirror and despised the security guard staring back at me.  I didn’t spend four years in Bible college to become a security guard!  I went to college to become a pastor.  I wasn’t meant to be Paul Blart: Mall Cop!  I no longer recognized who I was because I didn’t KNOW who I was anymore!  My life had become a shoe aisle and I felt like the little boy with wet pants feeling lost all over again!

One of the store employees saw me standing alone in the shoe aisle wet from tears and…well, you know.  She was tall enough to see over the racks and beckoned over to my parents.  Mom came over, took me by the hand and gave me a very stern talking to, but I didn’t care.  I was safe!  I wasn’t lost anymore.

To find myself once again I reached out to a counselor.  I have been going, off and on, for between four and five years now.  My counselor is helping me see who I am.  I’m not defined by a job title but by the relationships I have.  I am more than what I see in the mirror. 

-          I don’t need to sell myself short because I am “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) by One that doesn’t make mistakes!

-          I am married to an incredible woman and together we have two incredible children.

-          I am a member of a family that loves and supports me when I hate myself. 

-          I belong to a great church and work with a great group of pastors and parishioners.

-          I work for company that values me as a welcome addition to the team.

-          I have people that have supported me when I unleashed this idea of a blog.

-          I am blessed!

I really want to end this blog by saying “and they all lived happily ever after” but I can’t.  I still struggle with seeing myself as anything more than a failure. Changing a mindset does not happen instantaneously.  It is a daily battle that I one day hope to win!

“I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see.”

– Amazing Grace, John Newton, Public Domain