The American students, alongside my husband and other teammates, emerge from their lunch break in the building behind us. They're spending their summer partnering with our team to mobilize Kenyan churches toward missions. I am a part of said team, though at times feeling so only in theory, especially now as I play in the sand with my children and the group boards the matatus (vans) to visit their various host churches that day. Lyla and Brayden wave their goodbyes as we stare at the group’s departure. My two blondes continue playing with their darker-skinned friends, and I slowly shrink beneath the weight of every wave toward what I've deemed that day as more worthy.

I sit down on a concrete slab, stinging tears threatening to give my thoughts away, vans disappearing down pot-holed roads while I’m left, still here.

Life looks vastly different than it did just a few years ago. Oftentimes I feel I’ve lost myself somewhere along the road and I’m waiting to find it again in the midst of less sleep, less time, less “ministry”… less of what used to be.  

Giving in to the lie that I am what I do — I am what title I hold in this season. And if it’s a title that’s not impressive in the world’s eyes or even what I think is valuable in the Lord’s, then I believe I’ve come up short. 

Paul has one of the most impressive pedigrees in the eyes of the Jews. He tells the Philippians he was a Hebrews of Hebrews. Yet this is not where he places his confidence. All of Paul’s previous identities meant nothing compared to “the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus [his] Lord, for whose sake [he] has lost all things…” (Philippians 3:8).

Can I know Christ and glorify Him when my time is taken up with dirty diapers and dirty dishes? Oh, yes.

In my everyday monotony? Yes again. 

When all of me is stripped bare and I feel there is nothing left of who I used to be? A resounding yes. Especially then. 

My roles might have changed. My hopes for the future look different, too. But you know what has never changed?  

My identity in Him. And that’s worth more than anything the world could ever offer, or what I could even offer to the Lord Himself. Because He offered Himself to me, and that’s where I place my hope and joy.