Who Am I?

“Jesus was totally unpredictable.”    A friend said that to me last  week and it has been stuck in my head.

Jesus was totally unpredictable and I CAN NOT figure him out.  I’ve read the Bible a lot.  After all, it was my major in college: Biblical Interpretation. Yet, I could never have predicted his next move, or response to various people.
Somehow, I find it freeing because all my efforts to find the pattern he used or, the lifestyle he choose or, the perfect words at the perfect moment, the perfect balance in life is just too much.
I think the problem is, I am trying to figure out Jesus in order to figure out myself.

Most of my life is an effort to figure out what “type” of person I am or should be for optimal quality of life.  I find myself wanting to turn the conversation to myself whenever I get a chance, longing to get to a deeper level of friendship with people so that I can know what they really think of me.  (Wow, that is a little uncomfortably honest).

Am I more introverted or extraverted?  Am I an academic or an athlete (ok don’t laugh, I still aspire to be athletic or at least athletically minded).  Am I liberal or conservative?    Am I a happy person or a depressed one?

The answer really depends on the day and on the circumstances.

I have always felt like this was a bad thing, that I should be so rock solid in my faith and my identity that nothing could phase me.  But I know deep down that I am totally confused about who I am at all.

So, I utilize what I call “The Essay Approach to Life.” (Based on the three best ways to organize an informative essay.)

• I try and define myself.  I get on this quest to find the correct definition of me.  I ask friends and family.  I ask my kids.  Sometimes, I  am so desperate to figure myself out that I ask strangers, “What kind of person do I seem like to you?”  (The answer to that is almost always... “a crazy one”)  
• I try and compare and contrast myself.  This one is a recipe for disaster.  I compare myself to people I wish I was more like and I contrast myself to people I dislike. I feel bad even saying that I dislike some people but it’s true...probably not you because you are reading this... but I do this compare and contrast thing and it’s exhausting and totally based on my perceptions of other people which are almost always wrong.  
• I try to figure out the cause and effect of who I am...what made me like this.  I delve into the past.  I dig up old memories and rehash old arguments.  I nurse old wounds and savor old victories.  I write the story of my life based on events and cataclysmic moments.  

This week I realized that applying ELA methodology to the nature of my existence is not really very helpful.

So, how do I move past this obsession so I can get on with living?

And I know all Christians out there are thinking, “You are the daughter of God, you are Beloved.”  That is the right answer.  I know it.  I believe it.

But honestly, (and I mean like super duper honestly...embarrassingly honestly...) I’ve heard that so much I’m not sure what that even means.

Which scares me because then I’m like, if I were a real Christian I would “get it.”

Here are some things that I don’t get about Jesus:

1. Sometimes he seems really harsh (...but then, can you respect someone who doesn’t even have the capacity for hard truths.)  I guess I can respect it but I definitely don’t get it.  
2.  He tells us to be alert and self controlled because he is coming back “like a thief in the night.”  (what does that mean and how can we not worry and still be alert?)
3. He says that he didn’t come to abolish the law and yet Christians don’t follow the laws.

Here are some things I love about Jesus:

1. -He had compassion on the weak, the poor and the sick.
2. -He healed people!
3. -He tells us not to worry.

Maybe I need to stop trying to “get it.” Maybe Jesus doesn’t want us to figure it all out...to figure him out.  And maybe it is not that important for me to be able to characterize myself succinctly (you know just to make it easier for the many biographers who, I am sure, will want to immortalize me after my death).  Once I let that go, I can stop trying to perfect my image.  I can actually talk to people and not just try to analyze how I am talking to people.  I can live and breathe and love.   It may be a little or even a lot unpredictable but then again, unpredictable doesn't seem so bad any more.

"You can't get there from here..." or can you?

Confession: I love blogs written by Farmer’s wives...The Pioneer Woman (http://thepioneerwoman.com/confessions/) ...A Holy Experience (http://www.aholyexperience.com/) , these are two (very different) examples of life stories/ blogs that rope me in completely every time I read them.  I am absolutely fascinated and terrified by farm life.  

Perhaps the fascination was sparked by reading Little House on the Prairie or by  the cover of an old book my mom had entitled, "True Women." Such a great title.  It chronicled the lives of several women who traveled out west and made their home out of the blank slate of land they found there.  I never actually read it, in fact I was a little traumatized by it because my mom reported that many of the women shot themselves out of complete despair.   Nevertheless, the women on the cover looked brave and strong, if not happy.  

So, back to the farmer's wife thing...I immediately wonder if I could make it.  Do I have the hutzpah to work the land sun up to sundown with my family... to live miles from the nearest hospital, police station, coffee shop?!  Would I be able to face everyday with joy and not succumb to the apparent temptation to go out to a field and give up on living?

Somewhat ironically, my husband grew up on a farm. I mean he isn't currently working on his family's land so I wouldn’t bubble in Farmer as his occupation but sometimes I wonder if it is his vocation.  That sort of thing is in your blood right?  Every time we get to some place with open space or large animals I sense he becomes a little more himself than he was before.   

I haven’t found that place yet, the place where I can breathe easy and just be me.  

So, how do you find that place?

Even as I type that I think of the verse from the Bible in John 14 when Thomas asks Jesus how they will know the way and Jesus says, “I am the way...no one comes to the Father but through me.”  I’ve always imagined that wasn’t exactly what the disciples were expecting to hear. 

Not surprisingly, Philip asks a follow up question.  He asks Jesus to show them the Father.  Jesus doesn’t seem to be of the opinion that there are no stupid questions...or if he does, he chooses to answer them with questions of his own, “Don’t you know me Philip, even after I have been with you such a long time?”  He continues to lovingly explain that he and the Father are one which I can only imagine totally blew the disciple’s minds.  

I don’t pretend to understand the complete unity and yet distinct persons of the trinity.  Here is what I get from the encounter...Jesus is the way, that’s it, if you have him then any place can be that place of peace for you.  

Fortunately for me, who still feels lost most of the time, the next thing Jesus does is promise the Holy Spirit.  He refers to him as “The Counselor” which is exactly what I need when I contemplate all of this.  So, by the leading of the Spirit which Jesus elsewhere says is like the blowing of the wind, we find our place, our identity in Christ.  

Where do you find peace?  Are you a farmer?  A farmer’s wife?  A city slicker?  An urban hoodlum? 

Whatever you have been, have you found Jesus?  If so, would you share the way he changed your life and the world you live in?  I need to hear that today.  Maybe we all do.