I Am Who I Am By the Grace of God

Hi my name is Mindy and I am a recovering Perfectionist  as well as a recovering People-Pleaser. 

I had an epiphany last night while struggling to sleep through the caffeine coursing through my body. [I don't do well with caffeinated drinks] 

I battled. 

I waged war. 

I was Jacob wrestling God for the Blessing. 

God won and I received my blessing.

I am 40 soon to be 41 and due to certain events in my life recently I have waged battle with the enemy of my soul and found who I am and who I am not.  Simply put, my life as a people-pleaser is no longer.  For so many years, growing up, as a woman in ministry and a mom, my greatest goal was to please others.  I worried, fretted, leaned on my own understanding and my reward was sorrow, grief and feelings of being completely manipulated, never good enough, simply because I only wanted to do what was right in eyes of others. 

Light bulb? [name that children's movie].  I am not doing it anymore.  It was destroying me and my health.  I truly ended up in the emergency room and hospital once  because of the anxiety I was experiencing over a circumstance of expectation from another individual.  My husband instructed me not to do what this person was telling me I needed to do. I obeyed him, with struggle in my emotions.  I wanted to do it all by being super woman.  Everyone's savior.  Fortunately, someone already fulfilled that position and it is was not me.

I am who I am be the Grace of God.  I am not capable of succumbing to undue pressure to perform miracles for others.  My life is no longer an endless cycle of ensuring everyone is pleased with me.  I am free to be me because that is all I know to do. 

I am no longer capable of working to please everyone.

I am only capable of being ME.

I am only capable of doing what God has equipped ... anointed me to do ... not what others think I should do.

I am a wife who is subject to her beloved husband as a service to my Lord. [Ephesians 5:22]  He is the spiritual head of our home and therefore we fall under his authority.  My husband and I left our mother's and father's, united, cleaved to one another and become one.  [Genesis 2:24]

I have a full-time job as a stay at home mother and homeschool teacher to 12, 9 and 5 year old children who need me to be there for them at this critical moment in their teen, preteen and delicate preschool age.  I am the keeper of my home and my children.  I am training up 'arrows' for God's purpose and pleasure.

I am where God has called me to be.  This is my season.  I love the saying "The safest place to be is the will of God."  I can honestly say I am dwelling in safety in the Secret Place of the Most High fulfilling His calling on My life because I am in the will of God not the will of others.

I am nothing more than myself.  That is all God created me to be.  I will never be anything other than Me.  If others find it upsetting that I don't pledge my blind loyalty to them, well,  I pray they won't stay disappointed too long.  I am moving on, getting on with my life, living my life to the Glory of God serving my husband and my family in my home, and those I love, the best way God has equipped to me to do so.  My calling is from the One and Only. 

I am Mindy.  I am who I am by the Grace of my God.


Motherhood



There is no more demanding work in all the world,
no more awe-inspiring job description than raising godly seed.
It will challenge all the genius, talent and grace
that any human being could possess…
It is the highest calling any woman can enter.


-Walter J. Chantry