Learning with my Cubbies

It really amazes me sometimes how much God can use my Cubbie class to teach me. When I first volunteered to teach the group of preschoolers at my church last year, I imagined that it would be more of a structured baby-sitting session with Bible stories in the hopes that the kids would remember something here and there to really learn what it means when they got older. Well, I learned last year that I was horribly mistaken. These kids could remember not only the stories, and not only could they regurgitate the verses back to us at the end of the night, but they remembered those verses. This year, there are six Cubbies in my class, and two of them have accepted Christ into their hearts this year! Praise Jesus!

But that's not all that I was wrong about when I took on this job. I assumed that I'd be chasing kids around and reading Bible stories that I've known since I was their age, and that would be the end of it. Well, when I broke up with my boyfriend and started seeing my counselor again, one of the first things we talked about was how I don't want to marry a bozo, but rather a Boaz. In the book of Ruth in the Bible, it tells the story of a young woman who lost her husband, but left her native land to stay with her mother-in-law to take care of her. In her mother-in-law's land, Ruth quickly became known as a loving woman of strong character. Boaz, a successful man who loved God and was an upstanding man in his community, took note of her. They fell in love and got married, and from that marriage came the line that would later include King David. On Valentines Day this year, I was fighting to keep busy and distract myself from "Singles Awareness Day," as I faced yet another V-Day Invasion alone. I opened up the Cubbie lesson to prepare to teach, and lo and behold, the story I'd be teaching was Ruth and Boaz.

Another thing that several people in my life have been working on (and encouraging me as I work on as well) has been identity. I've been going through all of these things that God thinks of those who follow Him and trying to grasp what all of it means for just me, and this week's Cubbie lesson was about Heaven. So as I tried to wrap my head around who I am in Christ and what God thinks of me, I was coloring a poster about Heaven with my Cubbies. "What do you think will be in Heaven?" Most of them got pretty excited about beautiful flowers and butterflies, green grass, blue sky, mountains, God and Jesus, and all of the things they thought would be in Heaven, chattering about their drawings so that I would know what the sprawls of color all over the paper were. We talked about how the only way to get to Heaven is through Jesus, because everybody sins, but Jesus died to pay for that sin so that we can spend forever in Heaven with God. The Bible verse was John 14:2: I go to prepare a place for you.

Jesus died for my disrespect, for my vandalism of God's temple, for my carelessness in my romantic relationship, for my apathy, for my disbelief, for my idolatry. Jesus gave His life to pay for all of that because He loved me. And right now, He's in Heaven where the grass is green and the sky is blue and there are flowers and butterflies and mountains, and He's preparing a special place in the house of God just for me.

Identity

I've been thinking a lot about identity lately. There's a lot to think about there. Who am I? Who is anyone? What makes me different from anyone? You know the saying, "You are unique, just like everyone else." Which side of that contradictory statement triumphs: you are unique, or you are just like everyone else? I refuse to believe that I'm just like everyone else, so then how am I unique? How do you judge who you are? If who you are is not based upon what you do or how you look, then what is it based off of? What you like? What you achieve? What you believe? How much you confuse people with deep questions in a single blog post?

I have an identity in Christ. I'm the daughter of the King of Kings, who created me, has a plan for my life, and loves me so much that He died for me so that I can spend eternity with Him. That's a huge part of my identity, because it's my existence. It's how I was created, what I was created for. But the part that I struggle with is that identity belongs to every single person who has trusted Christ as their Savior and follows Him. That goes for the "just like everyone else" side.

So I went to a girls' night with a couple of ladies from my church, and it turns out I'm definitely not the only one who has been thinking about identity. I mentioned this conflict that I've been having, and one of them commented that God created me with an artistic talent (personally I think I have more passion than talent, but warm fuzzies are always good!), and I use that to His glory, and that is part of my identity.

What if our identity then is what we focus our lives upon? Then who we are isn't what we do necessarily, it's not completely what we accomplish, and it's only what we look like if that's where our focus is. I focus my life on Christ (or try to at least), so part of my identity is the personal relationship that I have with Him as my Savior, my Lord, my Abba. I focus on my writing, so Kaycee the Writer is part of my identity. I focus on school, so Kaycee the Student (who is fixing to graduate with her Associates in Liberal Arts so that she can move on to the University of Iowa! Can I hear a woot woot?) is part of my identity.

I like this answer the best. Because that way, it's not what I do that is who I am. My identity doesn't change if I slip up against God or if I can't get published or if I get a B on a test. But it's not just the things that apply to everyone, either. The "You are unique" side triumphs with this answer. Trust me, I'm unique. There is definitely nobody else out there like me, which is probably a good thing. I'm not just like everybody else. I have my own identity that makes me special, that makes me different from everybody else. What's your identity?