What is your identity?

Last night Zach asked me what has been on my heart lately? What is God teaching me? What am I learning in my devotions? How is God using me? And I didn't have an answer for him. I just sat there and stared at my plate of food. Yes, I have been in God's word. Yes, I pray consistently. But am I truly invested or am I just going through the motions? Am I seeking out God's wisdom in my day to day life or am I more concerned about the way I want to go about doing things?

The conversation continued with Zach tell me how he is trying to find his identity in Christ. We finished supper and he headed to church for a business meeting (I stayed home with sick kiddos). That conversation basically went in one ear and out the other until 4 o'clock this morning; I woke up to feed Elsie (and here I am three hours later still awake and writing this). I sit here thinking, what is my identity? If someone were to ask me how do I identify myself, my answer would be, "I am a wife and mother". However, many times I do slip in that I am a pastors wife, feeling that if people know me as that they will think of me as a good godly women, and never question my motives or thoughts. Now there is nothing wrong with being identified as a wife and mother, but am I more than that? What is my identity?

I mean, I am a crafty and creative person does that count for something?
I am a daughter to wonderful parents and the oldest sibling to two sisters.
I have quite a few friends, doesn't that say something about me?
I have a bachelors degree in Child Development, where can that get me in life?
And most importantly I am a Christian. Why was this not my first thought? Why do I not identify myself with Him first? Why do I not identify myself with Him alone?

PRIDE. That is what stands between me and my identity as a Christian. I like to think my identity is what I can do myself. I know how to be a good wife. I know how to be a good mother. I know how to be a good daughter, sister, friend. I was a good student. I know how to be a good citizen. But without Christ I could not do be any of those things. Christ came and died on the cross for my sins, He came and showed unconditional love (the love I wish I could show to others). I NEED to make it a priority to be known as a Christian. Christ hung there on the cross bearing all my sins. My selfishness. My lusts for worldly things. My lying. My pride. And yet He is last on my list of things I identify myself with. Something is very wrong with that. 
He gets all the glory for making me the wife and mother that I am. In everything I do, I am striving to be more like Christ. He is perfect and I will never be, because of our sin nature (Romans 3:23), but the day I gave my life to God, I became clothed with the righteousness of Jesus.  By not realizing who I am in Christ was crippling my faith. 

So what is my identity?
I am a Christian! I am a child of the ONE TRUE KING!
Next, I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend.


Sorry to cut it short, but I hear Elsie waking up for another feeding (and I still haven't fallen asleep since that last one). So I will leave you with this thought, what is your identity?

Galatians 2:20, "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."