Re-Writing A Wrong!

What defines you?

Better yet, how do YOU define you?

It might seem a silly subject to bring up on this usually "not so serious" blog of mine, but I have been pondering some of life's big questions this past weekend and on Monday it all came to a pivotal point for me.

I used to be a fan of Oprah, the earlier years, and I also used to be a fan of Rosie O'Donnell, before all the drama of her life unfolded on the television screen for all of us fans of daytime television. I liked her variety show...not too hip on her politics and such...but I enjoyed her. On Monday, she was a guest on Oprah. It was a show not to be missed, so I hurried home from work, got the child distracted with a snack and sat down to watch.

It was interesting. I am not going to get into the whole interview...but one particular part gave me great pause for pondering. Rosie spoke of being chastised by a new friend for always defining herself as "the girl whose mother died when she was ten." Rosie is now almost fifty, living a life she could only dream about back then, and yet, in her mind and speech her life was always marked by her mother's death, the time before and the time after. Her friend helped her to see that she needed to move past it as the defining moment of her life and redefine herself for the accomplishments and relationships she has in her life currently; realize that she is no longer just a ten year old girl whose mother died, she is now a mother herself.

I tell ya, I was hit square between the eyes with this concept. I saw myself in the same situation, one I didn't even realize until Monday. An event happened in my early twenties that colors my view of myself, even up until today. No matter what has changed or occurred in my life since that time, I still see focus back on that event to help describe who I am, why I do what I do, why I think the way I think and why I feel the way I do about myself.

The event, well, it is not a necessary item for this blogger to share with you, it wasn't some horror story or some malicious act done to me, but it was a life-changing event for me. It changed who I was, how I dreamed, how I went about the rest of my life. I have had many good things happen to me, I have been blessed beyond what I could EVER hope or imagine. I am not complaining. But I realized that even with all the blessings of life, internally, I spoke a dialogue to myself, every day, all day long and inside, when I see me, or when I talk about my life, that event colors everything. It is how I have defined myself all this time, and I never really knew it.

I saw that part of the interview and left the room. I needed a moment to clear my head. I walked into the kitchen and just sat for a few minutes. I couldn't help but think how Sunday's encounter with the Most High God and this realization of how I have perceived myself must be related. I have perceived myself as unworthy. Unworthy of love, unworthy of commitment, unworthy of time, unworthy of having a child, unworthy of having a job, possessions, etc...and yet God looks at me and sees none of that. He sees His Son who thought I was worthy enough to die for. How could I see myself as any of the other when someone had died for me. How could I let one single solitary event in my past dictate so much of what I feel about myself and my life now? Pivotal moment, you bet.

I now have a new "pivotal" moment in my thinking about myself. It is Monday, when I began to let go of the past, in a fresh new way. I began to let it go and fill in the hole with something much more. I am trying to redefine "me" - the me that God sees. It will take a lot of white-out, but I am going to re-write my story...better yet, I am gonna let God do the writing this time.

Thanks for reading the rambling...

Living Happily in the Moment!
Bev