Who Am I?
Who am I? This seems to be the age-old question when you retire. Now that I am retired my husband and I often play a game of cards in the evenings and listen to music; sometimes the hits of the 50’s and sometimes the hits of the 60’s.
The music of both those decades take me back to the years when I was a teen. I would listen to my transistor radio in the bed at night dreaming of who I would be when I was grown up. A few years later I found myself chief cook and bottle washer with a husband and five children. I knew who I was, a wife and mother.
It depends on who you meet on the street, it seems, as to who you are. To some I am the mother of their best friend. To others I was their 5th grade schoolteacher. To others I am the grandmother of their friend or boyfriend!
Retirement. That can be such a nice word or one that leaves one feeling a lack of worth because now we have no tag that tells us who we are.
I am often asked, “Now that you’re retired, what do you do?” Who am I?
I have been, daughter, friend, wife, mother, teacher, and caretaker. But these are just titles of what I have done and not who I am. I cannot find my worth in what I have done because if I do, I will find myself retired with no worth. This is not who I am.
Who am I? I am a child of God. He knows when I’m hurting. I can tell Him anything and He won’t snitch on me. He comforts me when I cry because of the loss of a loved one or separation with someone through misunderstandings. He never leaves my side. When everything seems to be going wrong, He gives me peace that is unexplainable. That’s my Father and I’m His child.
“But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12 NLT
“God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.” Ephesians 1:5 NLT
If you are reading this, you have probably made a mental list of who you are to yourself and to others. Many titles on our lists will be the same. One title on the believer’s lists is that we are children of God.
When I was a small girl, I went with my grandmother to our local country store. Someone asked me, “Whose girl are you?” I responded, “My daddy’s.” Everyone within earshot laughed and I felt very foolish. But I now know it is not who I am or what I do but Whose I am. I’m my DADDY’S girl.
–Colleen Morrison