I Am...

A couple of years ago for MOPS we talked about identity. Several of us wrote some testimonies about who we were. I've been kind of busy the past few days...well not really busy busy, just busy enjoying life and my family, so I haven't felt like taking the time to think through the post I really want to write about my word/words for the year. So anyway, I thought that over the next few weeks, if I'm "due" for a post but not wanting to take the time to write something, I'll post some of the writings I did. I'm adapting some of them since they're a bit outdated. This will be a good place for me to keep them, I think.


I am a saver. . . a saver of plenty of things I don't really need, and some I actually do. Sometimes I save money by shopping sales or clipping coupons. On occasion, I have saved my children's lives. Mostly, though, I save memories. The pockets of my mind are full of moments and phrases I plan to keep forever . . .

. . . sitting on the couch with my mom twenty three years ago and giving my heart to Christ; the sound of my dad's voice reading the Christmas story on Christmas Eve; what I ate for breakfast the morning I won the first high school cross-country race I had ever run; hugging my tearful baby sister goodbye on my first day of college; how my husband shivered next to me on the couch the moments before he proposed, while I sat there wondering how he could be cold the last weekend in July; the excitement of finding out we had the winning bid on our first home; the scent of our newborn babies; the time my Ethan insisted in his sweet little voice that he wasn't bossy, he was a cowboy; holding Karis for the first time and feeling like I was looking at my own baby pictures; having the kids help me tell my husband that number three was on the way; how I completely lost it my son's first day of preschool; taking the pregnancy test for the baby we never held; driving to the hospital to have my fourth baby with the other three in the van; Natalie singing her version of "Away in the Manger" at the top of her lungs; our first trip to the ocean; finding Levi standing IN the toilet; the kids begging to here "You Never Let Go" every time we go somewhere. . .

. . . of course, I could go on for hours, as I'm sure each of us could. We all keep our memories for different reasons. I save these words, these smells, these snapshots in time for those moments when I wonder who I am. These memories remind me of where I've been, what I've accomplished, and why I'm doing what I do each day. That is why I hold on to them so tightly that it hurts when I feel them starting to fade.

I'd love it if you some of you guys joined in on this and post some of your own "I am's". It would be neat to see the different ways we all identify ourselves. Leave a comment with the link to your post...