Who are you?  Great lines to a song.  Great question for life.  It is something that I have asked myself many times and many times found myself trying to be someone that someone else wanted me to be.  I’ve been the good boy who didn’t talk too much.  I’ve been the good boy who was the youth group leader.  I was the good student.  I was the accountant.  I was the good Christian following all the rules.  I was the person others told me I needed to be or should be…but I usually wasn’t myself.

I have heard people wonder why teenagers were drawn to alcohol and drugs. Or, why are adults drawn to alcohol and drugs?  What would possess them to ruin their life and, potentially, hurt others in the process?  I think the answer in the most simple form is that they are not happy with who they are so they are either trying to be someone else or just trying to forget who they are for a little bit.

There are people today who think I have lost my mind.  I have made some decisions that don’t fit the norm and, looking at it from one angle, have put me in a precarious position financially.  Yet, I have a strong sense of peace as I think about who I am and what I want to do with the rest of my life.  I have a strong faith that God will provide all I need.  Sure, He isn’t working on my time frame but I was reminded the other day that God’s time frame is perfect, mine probably isn’t.

The last few years have allowed me to explore who I am and to begin finding contentment with the answers.  It is restructuring my faith.  It is restructuring my financial condition.  It is restructuring how I see others.  It is restructuring what is truly important to me.  And it is giving me more internal peace than I’ve ever known.

C.S. Lewis is quoted as saying, “Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.”  I am trusting and I am praying that the hardships I go through today while learning who I am and living my life more in line with who God created me to be will lead me to an extraordinary destiny.  I pray that for my friends too.

Grace and peace.