Identity Crisis

I’ll admit, as a working mother, there are many times I have wished that life would slow down, just for one day, even one hour, but when it did slow down due to COVID-19 , I encountered a crisis I could not have foreseen. For me, my job is source of security, a safety net. It may seem odd that going to a school with almost 2,000 public school kids every day is secure or safe, but this job, for me, is a calling, and it has been my “identity” for longer than I have been a mother, even longer than I have been married. Working with teenagers, the more difficult the better, has been a fulfilling career for me. While I believe that God clearly chose this path for me, being home for the last two weeks, and at least two more, in the middle of the school year, has shown me how much I rely on my career for my identity.

I can imagine that this change has affected many people in the same way. While I am working from home, I am now a “home school” mom, a role I never saw myself playing. Home school moms are no longer an anomaly, but the norm. Career people who are used to their spouses or a daycare caring for their children are making peanut butter sandwiches, teaching basic math, and reading stories to their kids in the middle of the work day. Pastors are even preaching to empty sanctuaries-things have definitely changed. And while these changes will not last forever, it has made me reevaluate my identity. Much like a singer whose vocal chords are attacked by a strange injury or disease, or a mother whose child leaves home for good, we cannot rely on our careers for our identities. Even our beloved volunteer and church duties are gone. We can’t even serve others in the ways we are used to-for me, I cannot meet with the two most important mentees I have right now.

Slowing down has, and still is, teaching me a few things: I am a child of God, first and foremost. My situation or career may change temporarily or long-term, but he has a plan for me to be used for his glory. Change is hard, really hard. I don’t like it, but as my best friend used to say, “Change is good, it lets you know you are alive”. For many of us, change has come quickly and dramatically. Now, I am needing to be a more supportive mother and wife at home. There is a lot of fear and chaos in the world, so I need to stay grounded in his word and “speak truth” to my family. My husband needs me to oversee my children’s education, and encourage them to trust God even when they can’t see their friends, teachers, even church leaders at this time. My husband needs me to support him while he is still working, and be the positive homemaker right now, even if I’m not used to it. I guess I am realizing that while my career or “calling” is important, the Bible also says,  “The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever” (1 Peter 1:24–25), and “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’—  yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes” (James 4:13-14). So, anything we trust in, whether it be a role, a career, status can be here today and gone tomorrow, and while normal life will eventually resume for most of us, I am realizing that my personal “identity” is fragile, more subject to change than I thought. All I truly have is Him whose “steadfast love never ceases”, for “‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him'” (Lamentations 3: 21,24).