you are not what you do!

truth

it’s true. this is what my heart desperately needed to hear this week. it’s one of those things that my husband has tried to tell me before. many times. i can almost hear him telling me… you have to learn to separate what you do from who you are. wise man that one is. don’t tell him, it might go to his head. but i often marvel at how much he leads me into truth and speaks words that are dripping in grace… always to bring me closer to who i am. this is one of my most favorite things about our relationship. in all of my brokenness, he was the one who always spoke truth to me.

anyways, i digress. you know how someone can tell you something over and over again but you don’t know it until you really know it deep down in your heart? yeah that is exactly what happened to me this week.

things happen and god breathes life to truth and it’s like you are hearing it for the very first time. and you do one of those, oh that is what this means. because it’s what your heart needed in that very moment.

i have told you all many times that i am a perfectionist. i like to say i am a recovering perfectionist. and i hope that every day i get closer to weeding this disease out of my life. but as a perfectionist, it’s really easy to get caught up in believing that you are what you do. your very identity is tied to what you do.

it’s really quite silly. why would we hold ourselves to a standard that we can never keep and will always fail?

think about your child or your husband or your friend. do you equate who they are with what they do for you? no i bet you think about their personalities  and their little quirks and all of the amazing qualities about them. funny, silly, talkative, loving, loyal, beautiful, bold, quiet, curious, brave…

part of my hang ups with learning to really enjoy life, have to do with this truth. you see i can’t enjoy life when i am too busy punishing myself for not doing things perfectly. yes, i do these things on a regular basis. and it takes me a day or two to get over this feeling like i have punished myself enough now. now i can back to living life.

being able to separate what i do with who i am helps me to get over that feeling of not being enough. it helps me to love myself even when what i do doesn’t measure up. i am not what i do.