You Are What You Think!!

You are….I am??

I began this summer plagued with anxiety.  My feelings and thoughts got so muddled that my identity was lost.  It got so bad that I was going to read a book on identity.

My thoughts were like this:

Kenady, what are you doing? why do you feel this way? Are you crazy? Just stop feeling this way. What if I make the wrong choice? Is God still for me if I make the wrong choice?  I want to be on God's side but what if I visit the wrong church today and then hear the wrong message and then set back my growth process?  

Who am I?  I don't know who I am!! Am I a beaver? a lion? some people think I am an otter, am I?

If you think I'm exaggerating, then think again.

My identity was and still sometimes is in the choices that I make.  This made every decision super stressful and every choice defined me.  I, then, took my powerful mind to Pine Cove where we take this quiz about personalities and that one quiz rattled my insecurities, since how other people defined me wasn't definitive.  I couldn't tell who I was because I wasn't basing my identity on truth rather on how I felt.

If I felt as if no one loved me, I became unlovable.  If someone told me I was an otter, when I took the test and got beaver, I would doubt my test taking skills and my discernment of who I was.

You are what you think so…

I was inadequate 

I was crazy

I was insecure

I was confused

I was broken

Then when camp started, I was worried about how people would think about me.  I didn't want to get disciplined, or in trouble.  I wanted others to see the real me so I ironically strived to be the me I thought I could be instead of just being who I was.  Yet, slowly the real me just came out and some ugliness with it.

This whole time I was swimming on the surface where as deep down there was sin and it was ugly.  This sin is selfishness.  So, the very person who didn't want to get confronted with discipline, got talked to.

Yet ironically, it took a humbling to boost my worth in my self.  For the words of wisdom and edification broke me.  Then, my thoughts turned to self-hate.  I started thinking of all the bad things that happened and the bad things in me.

I later was told that God disciplines those He loves and that deep down there was a mighty warrior inside me and that it just was going to take great care and discipline, so that I could reach my full potential.

So, with that my thoughts starting thinking of the gifts that God had given me and the love for others I had in my heart, and that I didn't want my selfishness to get in the way of letting others see how much and how deeply I care about them.

So my thoughts instead of focusing on me began to focus on others.  Which freed my mind up, so that I could love and serve and not hear those lies from the enemy.

You are what you think…so why not think truth?

For now I know with Christ in me that...

I am loved 

I am strong

I am cherished

I am transparent

I am capable 

I am a good friend 

I am wise

I am free to be me

I am a women of God.