You Are More Than the Title After Your Name
By Laura Bailey
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” 1 Peter 2:9 NIV
“Now, what do you do, Laura?” A simple but loaded question, at least for me. Over the past two years, I've narrated a response to this in my head countless times. So why could I not get the words out, “I am a stay-at-home Mom.”
As we passed bread around the table at a friend’s wedding reception, my husband and I struck up conversations with six total strangers. The opening lines went like this: “How do you know the couple? How long have you been married? Kids?” Next came the question I most dreaded: “What do you ‘do’?”
“Nowadays I stay home with my girls, but, I used to be, and I also did . . .” Five minutes later, after the point people were no longer listening, I finished waxing eloquent about my past achievements in the workplace, glowing with self-adoration.
Why did I feel it necessary to justify my current role as a full-time mother and then make sure they knew what I “did’ before to these people? Strangers, no less.
Easily answered. My identity and self-esteem were tied primarily to my career. I was not trying to convince them that my current job was important. No, it was another attempt to convince myself. Coping with my new position and title, “full-time mom and housewife” proved more difficult than I ever expected.
Well, as providence would have it, stepping back from my career actually strengthened my marriage, my friendships, and my relationships with my children. Also, during this transition, God revealed to me a host of deep-rooted issues that needed to be sorted out. Namely, the source of my identity and self-worth, my pride, and my joy—pretty much in that order.
For years, the title after my signature, not the inscription God penned by name, defined me and my self-worth.
Don’t misunderstand. Choosing to work and have a career outside the home is not wrong. The problem is putting our careers on a pedestal and finding our worth in the positions we hold up there. Rather akin to idolatry, really, which God clearly detests and repeatedly warns His children to forsake.
The Lord used the new role of stay-at-home mom and wife to change the trajectory of my life. He opened my heart and eyes to a worldview (His), that I would have never accepted had I not taken that step. Bearing children was His way to slow me down and get my attention. What I deemed a temporary break in my career actually altered my life’s calling and work.
God is all-powerful and can transform our minds and hearts, so we delight in our relationship with Him above all else. But, we also have an Enemy who constantly works to steal our hearts and minds away from things above and bring them down to things below or “of this world.”
Transformation does not happen overnight. It is an on-going, sometimes painful process that the Bible calls sanctification, the mark of being a true Believer. You may have to relinquish something you really love. You may have to surrender that idol to God. I do. Everyday.
I grasp only an inkling of what my Savior sacrificed by dying on the cross for my sins and giving me eternal life, but that’s enough to embolden me to tell people unashamedly (“proclaim”), “I'm a full-time home and princess maker.” Yes, most importantly, a princess maker. Because who am I ? Well, the Bible says I’m Royalty. A child of God, a daughter of the King, and by God's grace, my three daughters will be too, and there is no greater calling than that.
Intersecting Faith & Life:
Take some time today and ask, who determines your self-worth? What defines you? In other words, who or what do you worship?
Further Reading:
3 Ways to Identify and Tear Down the Idols in Your Life
Colossians 3:5
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/kyoshino
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