…becoming

Who are you?

Have you ever been asked that question?

It seems a very simple little question.

You are, in fact, you all day long.

Who are you?

Three words that can send the wisest of us spiraling into a mess of introspection never coming out on the other side.

Who are you?

If you asked me that question when I was 18 years old, I may have cursed you out.

What the f*** you mean, who am I? Who the f*** are you?

I would have responded that way not because I was upset at the person asking but because I was upset at myself because I wouldn’t have had an adequate answer. 

I had no idea who I was or what I was doing. At that time, I was merely the collection of insincere reproductions of influences who were just as clueless about who they were. Playing a role, horribly acting out a screenplay written for someone else.

Who are you?

Mad. Lost. Seeking. Of course, these don’t fully encompass the who of a person;

Only the what.

If you asked me that question when I was 30 years old, I would have pontificated an impressive response that would have satisfied the question.  Eloquence is the mask I wore then.  Convincing the world I had it figured out and I that I existed on a plane above the normal. I wanted to impress upon people that I was great but I needed the validity that they believed the impression to fill my insecurities of not being adequate.

In the light I could appear flawless, but when the night came the cracks in my foundation would cause me to stumble and spiral. I always needed noise to drown out the sound of insufficiency.

You are not who you say you are.

I declared vociferously who I was so that you would remember me how I wanted you to remember me so that you wouldn’t know the truth;

I didn’t know.

And I thought that made me a failure.

I thought that made me unworthy.

I thought that didn’t make me enough.

If you ask me that question now, I laugh because I understand ‘who’ is static.

‘Who’ …is definitive and concrete.

‘Who’ …is past, present and future.

‘Who’ …is limiting.

I could tell you that I am a Master Chief in the Navy but in two years I may no longer be in the Navy so that can’t be the thing that defines me.

I could tell you that I am a father and a husband.

But in 2003, I was a husband and if I was the same husband from 2003, in 2020, I wouldn’t be a husband for long.

There’s levels to this.

In 2000, I was a father….on paper. I initially cowered from weight of creation. With creation comes responsibility and the father I am now, celebrates that responsibility.

A father in both instances but not even close in similarity.

Same word; different depths.

Who are you?

Be careful how you answer that question.

You may answer it in a way that limits your potential.

You may answer it in a way that diminishes your purpose.

You may answer it in a way that limits your legacy.

How will you answer?

I answer in a way that allows my failures and success to co-exist.

In a way that allows my intentions and my actions to one day catch up to each other.

In a way that removes the period and adds a comma…

Who are you?

I am becoming.

_{“I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” Phil 3:14}