Who am I?

At 40 years old I sometimes still look at myself and ask the question, who am I? Why am I on this earth?  What job am I supposed to have?  How should I be spending my free time? What should I do to make my world a better place?  What clothes should I wear today? What TV do I have time for?  What books do I want to read?  Does my co worker think I'm a nice person?  Did that girl just give me a dirty look? When will I get my bathroom redone?  How will I handle it when I need another surgery? What color lipstick should I wear today?  What did I do for myself today?  Where will I be in my life in another 20 years?
Yup.  Even at 40 my brain moves at the speed of light from one thought to the other.  When I was little I would have to stop and explain how I got from one thought to another within a 2 minute period because 12 other thoughts would go from one to the other and if you didn't know the path that my thoughts took then the beginning thought made no sense with the end thought.
I, like most people, like to think that I am a very complicated person.  I have been though a lot health wise in my life.  I've been though a divorce and lost my ability to have children. I have always been very social, very smart, and very emotional. This is how I perceive myself.  Funny, loving, joyous, and intelligent.
The thing is, none of this is a lie.  I can be funny, I can be loving, I can be joyous and I am intelligent.  However, these are not the things that I should choose to define me.  Some people might ask why, well the answer is something that I fight to remember on a daily basis.
It's not me.
Every ounce of talent, personality, and intelligence that I have is God given.  I didn't work for it, I didn't create myself, I didn't pick and choose the good stuff that I wanted for what I wanted myself to be.  I was born this way, moreover, I was born screaming and crying into this world and without God's guidance that is exactly who I still am. That isn't complicated, selfishness is very simple.
My nature is sinful.  Certain people gasp sometimes when I say that out loud, but luckily God also gifted me with truth 2 years ago when I was baptized.  For 38 years I saw myself the way that I chose to, I still do if I don't keep growing in Christ.
Let's face it, it's easier to see myself as how I would like to be rather than how I am.
I am selfish and prideful and I gossip and I hurt people with my opinion that isn't even asked for.  I can be disrespectful, I can be hurtful, and I can completely see a situation only in how it affects me and forget that anyone else has feelings or thoughts in the same situation.
It's very easy to forget that I didn't create myself.  In fairness God loves me enough that he gave me free will, but what do I do with that?  Do I wake up everyday and think, how can I help God today?  Is that my first thought?
Do I wake up and think about what I need to do at work, in school, for my husband, and for my child?  None of these are things that I shouldn't be thinking about.  God gave them to me and he expects me to love and appreciate them.  He expects gratitude.
But more than anything, God expects me.  All of me, not the parts that I am willing to let him have, not the parts that need help, or the pretty parts that are ok to show him, All Of Me.  He knows anyway, but he wants humility, he wants praise, he wants me to rely on him.
I'm a parent now and I watch how my son reacts to his dad sometimes and how my husband responds.  Even if Eric is angry with our son you can see how hurt he is by the disrespect that the kiddo sometimes dishes out.  I can see the unconditional love that he has for our son and that in every part of Eric is the need to protect and love and care for our son.  Our son that is almost 15 years old.  Love like that never goes away.  That "I love you because I created you and I love you so much more than I could ever love myself" kind of love.
At 4 months God loved me like that, at 4 years, at 14, and now at 40.  If I live to be 100 God will love me like that, now, and forever.  He feels that way about every human being on the planet.
That is who I am.  A beloved daughter of God.  That is really who God made me to be and I rejoice in it.