I Don’t Even Know Who I Am Anymore…..

This is something I said to a friend over lunch the other day.
As tears slid down my cheeks, I admitted how lost I feel at the moment. I know this is a journey of becoming, but I feel like I am in limbo! I’m no longer who I was, and yet, not quite who I am becoming. I’m in the middle and feeling completely lost! Part of me wants to run back to who I was, the comfortable and familiar, and the other part of me wants to run as far from her as I can!

As we sipped our cokes and ate our fries, she reassured me that I was okay, that I was doing okay, and that I would be okay! She said “you are who you are” and I responded, “But am I? I don’t even know anymore. I don’t feel like me, and actually I don’t even know who “me” is meant to feel like! I didn’t like the old me, but what if I don’t like the new me?”

She said the essence of Kathy, is still Kathy and that will never change. And then she likened me to an apple tree. I really wanted to be like a Christmas tree, but okay, let’s go with an apple tree…..

An apple tree is an apple tree.

In Winter, it’s an apple tree.
In Autumn, it’s an apple tree.
In Summer, it’s an apple tree.
In Spring, guess what? It’s still an apple tree.

Even though that apple tree looks different in every season, it is still an apple tree, right through to its core. It cannot become a pear tree or even an apricot tree. It was designed by the maker to be an apple tree. And that’s what it is.

And in every season, it does what an apple tree should. Whether full of fruit, having spring buds, or completely barren and stripped bare, it is still an apple tree.
An apple tree was never designed to bear fruit in winter, and it was never meant to be barren in summer. The buds come every spring (at different rates) but it still produces fruit when it is designed to. Some seasons that fruit is sweet and juicy, and other seasons, not so much.

But an apple tree is an apple tree and will always be an apple tree.

The essence of who I am and who I am created to be will never change. The outside may change, I may bear fruit in some seasons, and be bare in others, but I am still me and always will be.

I am so thankful for friends who speak truth into my life. For friends who look past the current season and call me out into all God has for me. For friends that see through the burnout, and remind me I am who I am, the essence of who I am will never change and that’s the way God designed me, and if He is well pleased then I should be too!

So as I sit with this revelation and allow it to seep into my soul, I rest in the knowledge that God isn’t finished yet. I am a work in progress and I reflect how far I have come on this journey of discovery. God is so good, and I am thankful.