She Knows.

 

The only way I know my daughter who is a world away from me is through pictures and videos.  I have studied every inch of her face…I watch the videos on slo-mo and take a million screen shots of her face from every angle.  I have had the videos translated so I know exactly what they’re saying to her.  I have tried to memorize some of the words they are saying to her….you should hear mandarin with a souther drawl…it’s embarrassing.

Those videos and pictures are my only way to know my daughter.

This week we finally received updated photos and videos of our QueenE and she has gotten cuter…if that is at all possible.

As they have done in the past videos we’ve received of her, they asked her to repeat some English words, no doubt to show off her mad skills.

In those videos, she has repeated back those words blankly, simply stating what she’s been told to say.  She has had a look of confusion as she said back words that she had no attachment to.  Just doing what she was told to do.

“Say mama, say papa…”

But, you guys, this time….this time was different.

She looked right into the camera, and after being told to say Mama and Papa…this happened:

 

 

She knows.

She has had our photos for 2 weeks.  For 2 weeks she has been told that WE were her Mama and Papa and that we were on our way to get her.  She has placed a face on those words that meant nothing to her.

I will never be the same after watching her face light up as she said our names.

She knows.  Her little heart has felt the jolt of joy over being claimed, known, loved,  and fought for.

From unknown and abandoned, to a daughter.  It has already happened.  And she knows it.

Her future and destiny have already begun to shift in preparation for the day she is placed in my arms.  (which is in 19 days…what in the world???)

That is the smile of someone who knows who she belongs to.

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I’m going to be honest with y’all, the last few months have been a bit of uncharted territory for me.  They have been filled with big question marks and unknowns.  I am standing on the edge of a new season in so many ways…not knowing at all what lies on the other side.

In the last 6 months, life as I have known it has completely changed.

Here are just a few tid-bits:

1.   I’ve become a mom of 2 in my heart, with one baby a world away.

2.  I became a mama to a 2 year old mandarin speaking child with a major special need.

3.  I stepped down as Executive Director of The Hub: urban ministries, the non-profit I
founded and have been head under in leadership of for that past 10 years.

No big deal.  Just a tad bit of change happening over here.  Don’t mind me as I ball up in a corner and rock back and forth under the weight of it all.

There are days when these changes are exhilarating.

But for the most part all of this knocks the wind right out of me and leaves me feeling a bit lost.

The age old, rather embarrassingly cliche question that all of us have asked at one time or another has been taunting me on the days that I feel tossed around by all the change:

“Who am I?”

Here’s what I’ve discovered about change:  if your identity is at all skewed, if your sense of self and how you define yourself is at all tied to the wrong things, change will no doubt sift all of that right up to the top of your heart.

And it’s a whole lot of icky to look at.

I have bought the lie that WHO I AM is defined by WHAT I DO.

That my DOING sums me up:

“Cassie Hammett, Founder of The Hub: urban ministries and Purchased: Not for Sale, Co-founder of YouWood, wife to Brent, Mama to Liv and Esther.  Speaker, writer…..”

Blah blah blah.

 

But what happens when those things change?  When the things behind that comma shift or even disappear… what remains?

Here is what my heart knew instantly when my little QueenE spread that wide grin across her face…

THAT’S WHAT I WANT.

I want to know who I am with a wide-toothed-grin kind of certainty.

So who am I?  Really and truly?  What is the answer to that?

I am a child of God.
I am His daughter.

And I did nothing to earn that.

I was lost in my sin and darkness, “abandoned and unknown” and He called my name and whispered “Papa” over my life.

And in that instant my identity was set.  I was His.

And that has never been more true or less true.

Founding a non-profit that serves His kingdom purposes doesn’t change my identity.
Stepping out of leadership of that non-profit doesn’t change my identity.
Being a mama of one or two or six (wink wink Brent…every tribe and tongue is my family motto) does not change my identity.
Whether I write or speak or stay home and raise my babies…. my identity remains untouched.

Friends, take a deep breath with me.

How unbelievably freeing is it to know WHO WE ARE and who we belong to.

 

 

When your identity is unshakable you learn a whole heap of other things too:

1. God’s purposes are set in stone and not contingent on you.  Nothing I do or don’t do can thwart, stall or speed up the purposes of God in our world.
2. Who you are and ultimately what you’re called to are set in stone.  I am HIS and I am to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind and strength….and to love my neighbor as myself.  No questions asked.  This is always the answer.
3. There’s a grand adventure to be lived as someone abandoned to HIS purposes…not boxed in by what I do or have always done, but looking for His hand of guidance in my daily life.  What today Lord?  Ok and then what tomorrow?  This hungry-for-adventure-girl really needed a fresh reminder that the physical details of what He calls me to do are ALLOWED to change.  That what once He gave me to steward as a calling for a season, can now be replaced with something else.
4. The unique way He created you, all the odd things about your wiring and the things you love and are passionate about…those things will not change…even when your life does.  They stand because He put them there.

I have come face to face with the ugly belief that God shapes His plans around me.  It’s just flat out not true.  I have owned up to the fact that I allowed my titles to define me for far too long.  I have sifted out of my heart that I hold some things as “more worthy” than others in the way I spend my days.  I have had to wrestle my motives straight to the ground.  Why do I want to do the things I do?  Is it because I am operating inside of my identity…or is it because it’s what’s expected of me…it’s “who I am” to everyone else?

I’m telling you people… I’m in the weeds on this topic.  Trying to find my way through it.  Trusting that there’s a wide open field of freedom on the other side.

What about you, my sweet friend?  Who do you believe you are?  Write down your definition and take an account of how much of that definition is wrapped up in your “doing”.

Let it sink in.

Give that definition to Jesus and ask Him:  Who do you say that I am?

I promise what He says about you is nothing close to what you say about yourself.

I’m grinning just thinking of His answer.