Who am I?

I know, it's been a week since my last post. I am such a slacker. Time to remedy that.

One of the reasons I've neglected things is I've been working on my application to work at FDCS this summer. I'm done now. (Well, just about. I'm still waiting on one of my potential references to get back to me, but my part is done.) I can't quite figure out why it's taken me a week and a half to finish. I mean, it's not like the questions were incredibly complicated, or there is some theological masterpiece that must accompany it. I think I had just been avoiding it because I don't like doing self-evaluations.

I hate reviewing myself, I really do. Yes, I'm an INFP and yes, I "internalize and reflect" a lot...but when it comes to defining or evaluating myself, forget it. I learn far more about myself indirectly (through random revelations or comments from others) than by pondering the what and why of who I am. So I avoid it. It also doesn't help that it is class registration time again. So not only have I been having to think of where I've been and where I am, but where I am headed.

You know, I thought I was done with the whole identity crisis thing. Evidently not.

Perhaps one of the reasons I'm not too fond of having to evaluate myself is I am afraid I'll go to the extreme that I have visited before. I definitely went through a stage where I was obsessed with defining myself. This was also about the time when I had been reading Chekov, Ibsen, Shakespeare (King Lear and Hamlet), James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and other wonderfully depressing, where-is-the-meaning-in-life works. (It's tempting to post some of my journal entries from this era just for kicks; the melodrama is hilarious.) For a long time I questioned everything about my character, everything about my purpose, everything about my "journey" (warning teen angst). I stopped myself when I realized that learning who I am wasn't going to be something I could just sit down and do some afternoon I was feeling particularly poetic and that I should just learn as I go.

I've learned a lot about myself in the past couple of years. For example, God has definitely given me a heart for worship and a heart for service. My desire is to use the things that He has given me for His glory. I long for nothing more than to see His will done in my life.

Now trying to explain this to my advisor is going to be a challenge. She expects me to have some idea of where I am headed with my degree. I have to figure out a way to tell her "with grace, as though seasoned with salt" that I haven't the slightest idea what I am going to do with my degree, that I'm going to strive to do whatever it is God wants me to do and that I wouldn't be surprised in the least if what I wind up doing has little or nothing to do with Wildlife Science at all.

I've been listening to the cds from the fall Southern Regional Navigator Conference. The speaker was Fran Sciacca and, though I'm far from finished, he has been talking about identity. In fact, one of the foundational statements for his talks is "Identity leads to purpose. Purpose leads to function."

I love this. I am a bond-servant of Christ which means my purpose is, in all things, to bring glory to His name. This I can do by using the gifts I've been given (again: service and worship).

I think I've mentioned before that I love to serve, I am most fulfilled when I am filling a need, I long to be a laborer. Recently, I feel I've become more focused in that desire. I feel more drawn to ministries where I would be equipping others for works of service. Still vague, I know, and I'm not sure how this fits with my desire to get back up to Chester this summer, but I'm definitely cool with God knowing far more about what is going on in (and with) my life than me.

Again, now I get to explain to my advisor why I still have no plans for career, no desire to continue on to grad school (at least not in this major), and why I'm planning on spending my summer serving rather than working at something halfway related to my major.

My advising appointment is tomorrow. This should be fun...