"Just Being"

An epiphany.

Something has just occurred to me...I don't ever want to not serve as a librarian. My commitment to collection development, leading storytimes, and overall love of books are a passion. While I hope to continue to write and produce plays, I am hoping that some part of my life is somehow always involved within the public library or community outreach.

If my passion for libraries means that I don't get to be a filmmaker, I accept that. Professionally, I love where I am. I enjoy helping people. I cannot say the same thing if I were to become a filmmaker. Even with the adage of "better late than never," I am still getting older, and as Hosea and I give thoughts to expanding our family, I cannot imagine learning a new trade...or developing a "new" passion as I grow older.

There is still so much to learn about the public library. It's still very new to me...I would be saddened to leave it all behind to start something new, but if God said go, I reckon I would...still a career without books and storytimes doesn't seem fair.

Guess it's all a part of His plan.

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I was sitting at work when what I wrote above, came to me. Here's the truth about me. I am very driven. If I like something. I really like it. I have always struggled with not losing my identity for the sake of my career, meaning that God on more than one occasion has needed to remind me that my being is more important than any job title.

I love to check boxes. I love a sense of accomplishment, but sometimes God is pleased when I do nothing but rest and trust in Him. When I can stop trying to make things happen, and just own that I have no control over anything I know it's pleasing to God because that's not often my nature.

When Hosea and I got married, I told myself very early on that I didn't want to get lost in "just being" a wife. When I became a mother to Zay, I told myself that I didn't want to get lost in "just being" a mom. Now as I wife and a mother, I just want to be lost in God...I want to be so lost in Jesus that I lose myself to find who He wants me to become. 

I thought I knew who I was supposed to be, but as I focus deeper on my family and the response that's required of me to be "all in" with them, I am abandoning the notion that I need to be in control of my future. That I need to know what I'll be doing, and how I need to go about getting there. 

I have always struggled to understand the word humility. Today in church, I listened to my Pastor explain it and I began to journal what I felt I was coming to understand about the word. I think its meaning will stick with me after today...

Humility, according to Pastor Doug, is just a right understanding of who you are. Yes I have gifts, but God gave them to me. My gifts don't overshadow God as the Gift Giver. Humility is recognizing God's willingness to give me my gifts in the first place. 

God, you have given me so much, but a part from you I can do nothing. 

Last weekend I took myself to the movies. The main character in the movie I saw was struggling with winning. Her need for success was robbing her of an opportunity to form healthy relationships.

Realizing this led her to later admit, "Winning means nothing if you're a terrible person." Likewise, my gifts be they writing or serving in the library mean nothing if I am not using them for God's glory, or in His timing.