Get Fit Lesson 1: Identity

I touched on this before I started my weight loss regime.  It is even more true now.

We live in a world of things.  Our value, worth, whatever you want to call it, is determined by our stuff and things.  I remember being young and hating that my shoes came from Walmart when my friends bought their shoes at the mall.  I remember feeling ashamed that I drove the family van while my friends drove their own cars.  I remember feeling like a failure when I didn't make state choir my senior year - the ONE thing I was good at.  I remember not buying the nice car when Rick and I bought our first car together.  I remember being the biggest girl in the bridal party and wishing to God my size was a singe-digit.

I was behaving as though my value was in what I had.  If I find my identity in what I have, I should expect my happiness to be fleeting.  It will only last as long as the shoes, as long as the car, as long as the feeling.  It's like the seed that falls on rocky soil, sprouting briefly and then dying.  Where are the roots of my happiness?

Throughout this process of losing weight, I have tried to keep myself from drawing my happiness from it.  Sure, I am thrilled when people tell me how nice I look, ecstatic when I fit into a size smaller than what I'm used to, and overjoyed at the fact that I am able to go up and down the stairs, run down the hall, or even the street, and not breathe heavier or break a sweat.  But it is not where I find my identity.  It's like money.  Money is here one day and gone the next.  Fashion.  Status.  Appearance.  Things.  They are all the same.  As soon as we begin to tie our identity to these temporary things, we begin to lose sight of what really matters.

What really matters?  My God.  My husband.  My children.  My service.  It is in these things that I find the source of myself.  I can't pat myself on the back or toot my horn about my small(er) waistline, or my job, or my house, or any of that.  Because when it all comes down to it, these are things, and things that I will eventually lose, through one process or another.  Why would I tie my identity to things that are so fleeting?

So, lesson 1 (which was actually more confirmed than learned):  I find my worth in who I am, not what I have.