Becoming. This word is being whispered into the vulnerable parts of my soul lately as I wrestle with this struggle of suffering well and stewarding what our family has been given in a season of long suffering while relentlessly seeking beauty, heaven’s language, to sustain me.
I am also an artist. An artist living in trauma and with PTSD and seeking the Lord’s healing, for me physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally and for my family. Our story is one for the books and I plan to share it here, soon. But for now, even the word ‘becoming’ is fitting into what is happening in my work life. I have not been able to show up to my art practice in the same way that I used to. Trauma changes you. It can change your art, too. More on this later - oh, I have so much more on this and I look forward to sharing it. But it’s important that I continue to show up…it’s just that my showing up looks differently lately. And that’s OK. It’s all a part of who I am becoming.
And to add to it, I am ‘in the middle’…that 40 something phase where there are no instructions on how to live your best life, how to embrace all the many changes your body and mind and spirit are going through…but inevitably, we all feel the tension and start questioning…
‘Who am I?’ in all of this. What am I doing? What does the Lord want me to see, to learn here? Am I doing what I am supposed to be doing? Am I living my purpose?
Then, that still, quiet voice of the Holy Spirit comforts me by whispering back, “You are becoming.”
For the record, if there were to be a static definition I would cling to, it would be ‘Child of God’. For me, that’s the only ‘title’ that matters, anyway.
In every season of life we are becoming and every. single. day. we become a little more…
And as we earnestly seek to become more like Christ, what we are to become is not yet known as it’s continuously being sculpted from the intrinsically good things God is giving us. They may be hard. There will be sacrifice. And pain. Even heartache. But there is purpose for this becoming. God is carving away the unnecessary bits, and chiseling new ones. He’s shaping us into His masterpieces. Long before we were even in our mother’s womb, he created us as masterpieces but we are not born into this title. We become.
And I can be delighted that not only am I becoming like Christ, but He’s hand-selected unique life-circumstances that are also making me become something He needs me to be for some future purpose. And it’s always good. And it’s always for His glory. Which is good, too.
Thank you, Father, that we truly are fearfully and wonderfully made. Thank you for our becoming. Help us have eyes to see and ears to hear and a heart to receive all that you have for us in these seasons of becoming. Let us take after you and not waste any of it, see purpose in it all, and give you the glory. In Jesus’s holy, matchless name I pray, Amen.
“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” - 1 John 3:2