Identifying the tears and embracing the Truth

So I would say this past week has been my most difficult since moving to Knoxville.  I feel like I need to preface by saying I am still loving loving loving being married and am blown away daily by my husband's unconditional love for me. He is nothing short of a gift. There have just more moments recently of feeling super overwhelmed, super insecure, and super anxious.  And I keep asking myself and the Lord, why? Why am I feeling so crazy??

Well, with the help of the Lord and others and a book I'm reading..I'm starting to figure it out.  I realized this weekend that I (not to be dramatic), was having a sort of identity crisis. I realized almost everything I knew myself to be is no longer true (a teacher, a coach, a single woman, a roommate, a South Carolinian, a Hare, a non-cook :))  This has left me evaluating my heart and where I have been finding my significance. The questions twirling in my head: Am I less right now because I'm not working outside the home?  Am I less because I'm not ministering to high school girls? Am I less because I'm not known here like I am known back home? The answer is NO even when sometimes its feels like a loud YES.

I have been reminded of the well-known truth that identity must be found in the Lord, as His child.  That IS my primary, ultimate, never changing identity. That is what gives me purpose, significance, joy. Seasons change and life brings blessings and losses.  If I don't find my identity in the Lord but rather in what I "do"...My life will be full of identity crises.

I have also been reminded that I can not earn more acceptance from the Lord.  It is impossible for Him to love me more than He already does. No matter what I do or don't do. Even in typing that, I'm thinking really? that is true, right? YES...We I am so human in my thinking.  I sure long to embrace this love and love others in the same way!

Here are a couple of verses I am claiming this week...

Deuteronomy 31:8- "it is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

1 Peter 2:9- "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."