who are you?

There's something about rain in California which causes me to stop and think.  When I stop and think I think too much.  When I think too much I get deep and when I get deep...Void hears about it.

Who are you, Void?  I heard it in a talk a few weeks ago.  The speaker asked us, "Who are you?"  "Write it down," he directed us, "Tell me who you are." 

Surprisingly, or not, many of us answered the question this way.  "I am a teacher," or "I am a student," or  "I am a mom," or "I am a truck driver," or "I am the CEO." 

The speaker told us we'd failed.  "The answer to a question, 'Who are you?'  is not what you do.  That's the answer to the question, 'What do you do?'"

That made sense to me, so I thought and guessed the real answer would simply be my name.  "I am Katie."  The speaker must have been reading my mind because next he asked, "Who are you?  In other words, Who is (fill in your name here.)"

Okay, if I'm not what I do, and I'm not my name...than who am I?  Feeling a mix of anxiety and identity crisis over the fact that at age 26 I still didn't know WHO I was, I began to list all the words people use to describe me.  I am this, I am that, Katie is this, Katie is that...but the speaker told me those answers were wrong too.  "No, no, no...those are the answers to the question, 'What are you like?'"

Flustered and quite frustrated I started from the beginning.  "Who am I?  Well, I was born in Wisconsin.  I have four siblings.  My parents are ____ and ____.  They still live in the town I was born in and are the best parents a person could ask for."  Again, I was wrong.  I was answering the question, "Where are you from?"  not "Who are you?"

Complicated!  If you are not what you do, you're not what your like, and you aren't where you're from, what is the real answer to the ominous question, "Who am I?"

That's when the speaker had us open our Bibles to Isaiah chapter 43, verse 1.  It read, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine."  There it was!  The answer we'd been searching for. 

I'm not an absolutely fantastic employee.
I'm not exceptionally gifted in every sense of the word.
I'm not a Wisconsinite, a Utahan, or a Californian.

I'm better - I am God's.

I can stop looking for me under the piles of applications and resumes.   I can stop defining myself through worldly views and critics.  I can let all the things that have been said about me or will be said blow away on the breeze because I already know who I am.  I am His.  I always will be.  There's nothing else to worry about because I'm just me and in Christ I'm perfect.  That, my friend, is the best answer I could have heard all day.

On a final "note"...check out this song about you.  Enjoy :)