Bread of Life Section: My Preeminent Identity

Sunday is the day I share a little of my soul. Enjoy.

It's been a bit. Things have been insane here.  In all honesty, I feel like I've been under a bit if a spiritual and emotional attack...

 I can joke about it now. But in reality, it has been several months since I felt like I was normal. I've been discouraged. I'd been trying to face my battles alone. I'd had physical and spiritual pain. There were heartbreaks when circumstances and my reality were very different from what I had anticipated. I was a shining example of a whining baby girl. I wanted justice. I wanted the person I trusted to know that they failed me. I was disoriented. My first response to hardships was not good.

Mainly, I had allowed myself to get numb to my real identity. My preeminent Identity, being that I am a daughter of God. Remembering deep down that I am a child of the Almighty God and heir to His kingdom, would have made the last few months a lot more bearable. Yet I allowed myself instead to focus on the distractions. It's easy to do. Perhaps you've done it too?

"The more distractions that surround us, the easier it is to treat casually, then ignore, and then forget our connection with God" (learn more about this phenomenon Here)

Let me explain. I have, over the last few years, starting identifying myself as a few things:

Chef

Chef Tess

Cookbook Author

Baker

Wife

Mom

TV personality

It wasn't until about a month ago when I really started to focus again on my REAL identity that things have started to settle in my life. Confession.  I had stopped going to church for several months. At a time when I should have run desperately and helplessly into the arms of God, I withdrew. I made the excuse that it was mainly because I was so intensely tired at the end of the exhausting work week (and yes, I'm still struggling with a brain tumor  that gives me remarkable pain most days), and then it just got easy to not go because I had been away for so long and I didn't really feel like anyone really missed me anyway. At least, I told myself I wasn't missed.  Look. It was a mistake to think that way. 

In retrospect, I realize that my depression and dark feelings were in fact a direct result of missing that fundamental weekly refocusing on my eternal perspective. It didn't matter what else happened in the week. I just needed to go. Is any church  perfect? Nope. Church isn't perfect because people are there and people are dorks.  People are broken. They're there at church to learn just like you.

Sometimes they make mistakes or say thoughtless things.  Sometimes people will break your heart. 

People are not God. 

Jesus Christ  and His Gospel are perfect.

I said to myself  at the end of a particularly painful week, "If you're going to church to get people's opinion, you're going for the wrong reason. The only opinion that matters is the opinion of your Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ. They asked you to be there every week. The end. That's the request from a Loving Father who knows what you need more than you do." 

So...I did go back. 

Yesterday I reconnected with my darling friend Tara. We baked like we did seven years ago when I first started this little blog and the incredible journey that has come from sharing my adventures here. I finally feel like a cloud has lifted. 

She's my sister in Christ. So sibling baking is totally cool.

I'm still a chef. Chef Tess. Baker. Author. You know the list that you call yourself to strangers.

From now on however, the first and foremost identity that you can bank on, is that I know who I am and who has my best interests in mind. No matter what I have an absolute trust that He allows me some suffering, some discouragement, some struggle because that is what real good Fathers do...they raise up their children. He will raise me up to walk on stormy seas. He will walk with me through fire. He will never, no never, forsake his child. If I ever forget that, just give me a little nudge. I'll nudge you too. We are, after all, Children of the Most High God. 

Happy Sunday my darlings. 

Love Always,

Daughter of God

Tess