Who are you? This is a frustrating question for me – not because I do not know the answer, but because my answer sometimes makes folks a little uncomfortable. People like traditional categories and neat little boxes in which they can place others. In my case, I’m put into the “mother” box first, because it is the most obvious.

When I do not include that function in my reply to the question, however, someone who is familiar with me and undoubtedly feeling a little uneasy about my nontraditional answer will quickly inform the group (with a smile of course) that it is also a part of my “resume” – along with wife, homeschooling mother and etc.

However, before I was any of the many blessed titles that I hold, I was an (unintentional) leader, an intellectual, a lover of words both spoken and written, a dreamer, a seer, an artist, and a writer among many other things. These things are intrinsically a part of my person – they are like DNA to me – they are who I am and not how I function as a result of other events in my life. I was intimately aware of these things about myself even before coming to know the Creator.

I began to really think about these self-evident truths many years ago. I imagined a time when my children would begin their own lives, separate and apart from my constant watchful eye and attentive care. I didn’t want to arrive at that inevitable point trying to figure out who I was or what to do with my life, because I’d neglected to acknowledge and nurture the parts of me that are not contingent upon anything else.

It is now the eve of the release of my first book, Somebody Else’s Blues, and I feel accomplished in that I’m slightly ahead of those inescapable life changes that are now starting to pick up momentum. I’m not trying to figure this out — I don’t have to have to become reacquainted with myself. I know who I am, and I’ve allowed myself full expression in that truth for quite some time. The question may be, however, who are you? — and if you know who you are, will you allow yourself the benefit of doing the same.