Project 52: Who Are You?

A note before diving in: Project 52 is a photography challenge that I have accepted for 2016, but because I love exploring and learning more about both photography and writing, I am combining the two with each week's theme here.

Week One: Who Are You?

I cannot sum who I am up in just a few words or merely a few sentences. I am complex, yet simple. I might resemble the made famous quote by actor Tom Hanks in his role as Forrest Gump, I’m “…like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re gonna get”. I don’t mean to imply I’m mysterious, on the contrary; I’m an open book.  I like who I am though. I’ve worked hard to become the woman I am today. Everything you see of me on the outside has a story of hard work, fight, determination, and ultimately of love for myself because I have always known to some degree I am worth fighting for. I am better than the circumstances that have surrounded me or have threatened to take me captive, trying mightily to rob me of joy. I am not what happens to me. I am not my environment. I chose joy a long time ago. It resides deeply in my soul and escapes through my smile. I think I might even smile in my sleep most nights---not because my life is easy. Lord, knows it is anything but. I think I smile because I am secure in my faith. I am a glass half-full kind of girl.

I’ve been broken. Some of that brokenness has been done to me, while a good deal more I have done to myself. I am not broken now. Chipped and fractured in some places and certainly scarred in others. And I treasure each of those chinks in my armor because I have learned more about who I am and who I was always made to be. I am whole. I am complete. My identity is not in my scars, but more so in the One who bore them for me so that I might have life to the full---if I would choose it. And I did.

I am:

Loved
Treasured
Delighted in
Fought for
Protected
Cherished
Forgiven
Called
Comforted
Held
Led
Whole
Transformed
Redeemed
Free from condemnation
Sanctified
Saved
God’s workmanship
Anointed
Free
Blessed
Graced
Empowered
Equipped
Promised


As I sit here typing out these characteristics, it dawns on me that these point more to Christ and all that He is able to do in a surrendered heart who desires to learn and love. I guess that’s who I am then. A heart surrendered.

I have several life verses; verses I hold close to my heart; that I pray repeatedly as I ask the Lord to continue to refine me—at any cost---to mold me into His likeness. One of my favorites: Colossians 3:4 “I am an expression of the life of Christ because He is my life”. It is my prayer that when people see me, they first see Christ. He is my life, my love, my everything. It’s who I am!