in a spacious place..

So, as I have engaged with a semester of slowing down and pressing in to those areas of vulnerability and weakness, learning how to be a woman on my knees... one of the things that has become very clear to me (was previously clear to my supervisors and friends, but I'm a lil slow) is that I am very performance-driven.

My greatest temptation is to define myself based on what I can do. If I'm succeeding, then I am worthwhile, I am a success. If I fail, then I am a failure. The insidious part of this flawed operating system, is that it perfectly correlates to the American dream... pulling yourself up by your bootstraps (physically impossible, by the way), "Just do it," hard working, innovative, success-driven, climber mentality. So often times, rather than being recognized for the unhealthy mode of operation that it is, I am applauded for it, encouraged in it, and even positively reinforced in that pattern.

And don't mistake me, there is nothing wrong with wanting to succeed. There is nothing wrong with being hard-working. In fact, those are both really positive things! But when our identities are so wrapped up in what we do, that we're afraid to cease doing, we're afraid to fail, because we're not sure that there's anything to us, other than what we do, then there's a problem. And that was me, at the end of last semester.

I would not do things, unless I thought could succeed, because my fear of failure was all-consuming. I was afraid of taking risks. And most crucially, I didn't know how to stop working-- I would work 60-70 hour weeks-- because I didn't want to slow down and actually have to face myself, to figure out who I was in the absence of doing. It was not a place of freedom... and all too often, fear and anxiety were the governing motivators.

Yes, yes, I know, I'm a campus minister, we're supposed to have things together. Wrong. We're often times the most messed up of all people, because we press into our unhealthy patterns in the name of serving God; we run away from facing ourselves by doing "holy" work... and our souls, my soul, become atrophied in the process. Because at the end of the day, under this mode of operation, who we are depends on our ability to meet a standard, to perform well, which looks a lot like a living under the law, yet again.

And friends, that is not living in freedom. You were not set free for the sake of becoming a working machine, defined by what you do. You were set free for the sake of freedom, to serve in freedom, out of delight, not out of a desperate search to define yourself. We, I, you, have an identity already, given by the Father. And any identity that we try to manufacture for ourselves will only a poor reflection of the one intended for us.

So this semester, thanks to the wisdom of my supervisors, has been a semester of slowing... of facing myself, my images of myself, my ways of defining my identity, and in that weakness, falling to my knees, and asking the Father, "Who do you say that I am?"

His answer? "You are my daughter in whom I delight."

Not an identity based in doing, but an identity of belonging and being. A child, a little girl, is loved not because of what she can do, but because of who she is... whether she's Michelangelo or a 5 year old finger-painter... whether she's singing Vivaldi or Veggie Tales... whether she makes Creme Brulee or homemade oatmeal with baking soda instead of sugar... she is loved and delighted in because of who she is.

So too is my identity. Delighted in because I belong to the Father. I am his daughter, known by him, created by him, and loved by him. And in that place, my performance has no weight on my identity. There is freedom to fail. To take risks. To try things that I might not be good at. To acknowledge places in which I am weak. Don't get me wrong, I still want to succeed. I still want to do well, but I want to do so to delight the Father, not to define myself.

That, friends, is a place of freedom. :)