Defining Who I Am?

What defines a person? Their marital, job, or religious status? Who am I? Who will I become after the divorce? Will I still be Dawn Allen? I have no ‘job’ status. I am disabled and unable to work in the real world. I will no longer be a wife. I guess I will always be a mother and grandmother except that they are not daily jobs any more.

I will always be a woman. I will always be a Christian…. I hope. I won’t always be alive, married, divorced or have a dog. I won’t always have happiness though I pray to always seek God’s face and not just his hands. I will not always be an artist. I will not always have a computer or a home. Hopefully, I will always have my music to worship the Lord of my spirit but if not, I will make up melodies in my heart!

What defines me? I am a human with a heart that breaks sorely but can lash out in fear at the same time. I can love and hate in the same breath. Am I a vicious person? Don’t I have the love of God supposedly in me? Yes, supposedly. I believe it is an ongoing process ~ just as it is with you my friend.

Does the fear, or hatred, or pain, or love define me? I would think what defines me would be based on who is doing the defining. If it is you, my reader, I may be defined as a hypocritical, judgmental, religious fool. Forbid. To the politician I am a ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ vote. To the neighbor I walk the dogs for I am a great help. To my husband… my step-kids… my mother…my brother…my son…possibly a curse.

The most important would be who God defines me as. Thankfully, he sees past the shame and pain and guilt and hatred and looks deep into my heart to the tiniest shred of delight in him, alone. He gave his life to redeem us from ourselves. His definition of who we are cannot be measured on human scales. Thankfully.

While being a good Christian, going to church, obeying the rules and loving others as ourselves are noble attributes; God only defines us by our true love and desire for a deep, personally intimate relationship with him.

Whilst I am losing all my worldly attachments, my human definitions and the chaff is being burned, all I have left to define me is my heartfelt love towards a God I cannot see. It is the only definition that will carry me through night and day~ dark and light.

I Cry Day and Night!

Here’s my revelation or epiphany for the day.

Maybe, just maybe, people don’t murder because they are evil. Don’t get me wrong. There is much evil in this world and many a person is completely controlled by its forces. But I am not convinced all murders are done out of an evil heart.

I had a dream last night where I almost killed someone. Was it evil that drove me to the desire? No. It was pure instinct that came out of sheer frustration because… this person was pure evil and was taunting me to a point of breaking.

Out of my frustration I wanted to stop that person from taunting me so horribly. The only thing I could think of was to grab the neck and shake the life out! Make them stop! I stopped when I realized what I was about to do.

I cannot totally blame that person for their viciousness. That is all they were taught. No one taught them basic respect or any solid version of how to really love a person. It is out of their ineptness of emotional fortitude that they are the way they are. It fuels their very existence in place of discovering why love is so vital.

It is sad. No one taught me how to love either. I just desired to grasp it so badly that I gleaned from any of the positive folks in my life. Then I met Jesus.

Am I perfect? Not in any way, shape or form. I just have a stronger desire than most to be in contact with reality and all its truths ~ to a fault and to my detriment a times.

Maybe it would have left the world in a better place if I had strangled that person and put the world out of its misery but alas, all I can do is pray that they will find their purpose in life and seek the one who created them to love.

Why?

"Why did I not die at birth?

Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?

Why did the knees receive me?

Or why the breasts, that I should nurse?

For now I would have lain still and been quiet,

I would have been asleep;

Then I would have been at rest

With kings and counselors of the earth,

Who built ruins for themselves,

Or with princes who had gold,

Who filled their houses with silver;

Or why was I not hidden like a stillborn child,

Like infants who never saw light?

There the wicked cease from troubling,

And there the weary are at rest.

There the prisoners rest together;

They do not hear the voice of the oppressor.

The small and great are there,

And the servant is free from his master.

Job 3:11-19

Oh Lord?

We sing our praise songs with all our hearts! ‘Teach me to love you Lord and not the things of this world!’ Then when he does what we ask, we freak and scream!

‘Lord why is this happening? Don’t you love me? Have mercy!’

We are a pathetic, frail bunch of humans in need of God’s judgment. But more so, his constant abiding love, mercy and abundant grace!

Wretched Stench!

As my stomach lurched I willed it back to just queasy. That had to be the most wretched smell I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. And not just a one time reunion but every day around noon.

You see, I walk my neighbor’s dogs every day at lunch as a favor to her. Her female dog seems to have an anal problem. It was thought to be an impacted anal gland but the vet ruled that out. She possibly had one and the fluid could have seeped into her hair at her back end causing a skunk-like effect. My neighbor was told that nothing would remove the smell.

When she doused the dog’s tail with cologne I begged her to stop. Now my nose was being assaulted with a good smell going very bad! The mixture was nauseating.

I moan to God then repent of my selfishness. Can God use me anywhere in the world if I am so touchy with what I deem as smelly? ‘But Lord that has to be the worst thing I have ever smelled!’ I realize he knows the smell well enough. Is that the worst thing he has ever smelled? Then I realize us humans living in our own sin is probably the worst smell he has encountered.

Dirty, wretched and stinking; like rotting flesh. Clean me and make me whole. I pray to be a sweet odor to your nostrils. A pleasantness upon your remembrance. Anoint me with the oil of gladness and perfume pure and holy.