The Search Begins

...Again.

I have often told people that the attempt to discover your identity, particularly in Christ, is among the most important journeys of discovery you will ever embark on.

This all began the other day as I was chatting with a good friend who I am still in the process of getting to know. She asked me, "So what do you like to do? What are you into; what do you do in your spare time?" A typical question when getting to know someone better, right? But for me it was almost depressing. In the moment of attempting to answer what ought to be a simple question, I realized that I had no decent answer...

In the last three years a lot has changed the person that I once knew myself to be. I've moved from a place where those who knew me, knew me well, to a location where upon arriving, the only fact known about me was that I was "the new pastor's wife", a title I had never held previously. In addition, last year I had the privilege of adding a new title to my list: "mom". For all who are parents out there, you know how much a new infant affects and changes our lives. My 1-year old daughter has now pretty much summed up my identity... and by no choice of my own, I have, somehow, lost sight of myself, my passions, and simply "what I like to do". I have been so consumed by "the land of mommyhood", as I call it, that I'm not sure where the original person who began this journey went.

I'm not criticizing the person I have become. Being a mother is surely one of the most gratifying things I have ever experienced. But I realize that in the process of becoming "Charity's Mom", I've misplaced "Maribeth" along the way. It is time for those two individuals to be reshaped into one whole individual while reflecting and maintaining the beauty of both.

So here's to transformation. Here's to new experiences. Here's to a life discovered. ...And rediscovered. It will be a process I will repeat my entire life anyway. But for now, I document that process on a global (albeit conspicuous) platform.