Misidentify

Salt and sugar look very much alike. But, if you put two cups of salt in a batch of cookies, I'm pretty sure even dogs wouldn't touch them. Similarly, many illnesses and injuries have similar symptoms but require drastically different treatment. In fact, for some, if you misidentify, the patient can die!

I've been feeling very out of sorts this week. I thought it was just nerves about leaving my family and flying for the first time in over a decade... But I realized after floundering all day Wednesday, that I have misidentified myself. It is easy for me to get so wrapped up in being a wife and a mom that I forget that "wife" or "mom" is not WHO I AM. I'm not even "daughter", "sister", "friend", "teacher", or any other human relationship, or job I have.

Who am I? I am an image bearer of the God of the universe. I am the twice-owned adopted daughter of the King of kings. Let me define twice-owned just a bit. I was talking to my daughter a while back, and I told her that she is responsible to obey God because she is "twice-owned". If you make something, you own it. God made us. In addition, Christ died to buy His people from the wrath our sin deserves. How great is that?!? With that kind of knowledge, what else can I do but worship and serve the God who made me and bought me?!? Sadly, in a terribly perverse way, when I identify myself by my relationships with people, or the jobs I do, I am trying to center my world around myself... But it's not my party.

And Samuel said to the people, "Do not be afraid; you have done all this evil. Yet do not turn aside from following the LORD, but serve the LORD with all your heart. And do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. For the LORD will not forsake his people, for his great name's sake, because it has pleased the LORD to make you a people for himself.
1 Samuel 12:20-22
 
A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Psalms 23:1-3
 
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous... I am writing to you, little children, because your sins are forgiven for his name's sake.
1 John 2:1,12