I Am...Beyond Labels

I'm in D.C. this week teaching 1000 middle schoolers about who God says they are:

What God says about you is the most important and truest thing about you.

Honestly, I still regularly struggle with this truth. A lot of times I define myself by what I do or what others say about me, not what God says about me. I am a wife. I am a daughter. I am a friend. I am a pastor. I am a mama-in-waiting. I am a girly girl. But those are really roles I play or things I do - it's not who I am.

For many months after my infertility diagnosis, I struggled to let diagnosis that define me:

I am the infertile one. I am a woman with PCOS. I am unable to get pregnant. I am broken at the core of my womanhood. I am less than other women.

Identifying those false messages was a huge part of my grieving process. Become aware of those lies ultimately led to the acceptance of my diagnosis, but not accepting those words as my identity.

Yes, I have PCOS. No, I am not the infertile one. I am loved beyond measure by God of the Universe. I am a new life. I am worth far more than my ability to conceive a child. I am being restored day by day to be more of who I was created to be. I am chosen by God for a divine purpose to change the world. I am created very good. I am an inheritor of everything that is Christ's. That's the truth about me.

And it's the truth about you. I pray that you & I would see ourselves beyond the labels that we place on ourselves or that others place on us. I pray those labels - true or false - would not become our identity, but they would be used redemptively by God. I pray that God's voice we would be clearer and stronger than any other voice. I pray God's labels would be the strongest of all.

And I pray that these middle schoolers at DCLA would "get this" early on in their lives...what different lives they could live!

Desert Song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZE33ejdgWIY

In December a dear friend of mine miscarried her baby. She sent me this video and it's been a part of both of our healing journeys. I watched it again today in preparation for my message on Mother's Day at Newsong, and I've been crying ever since. Part of the chorus says,

All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship

Those words cut to the core of me. They are true words. And sometimes worship is plain painful, but it's also healing and healthy. One of the worship leaders in this video lost her baby only days before recording this song. She said, " Even in the midst of the battle and the pain, when your in the thick of the mess of it all, you can still declare who God is. He gets bigger in your life, and he becomes the focus. And it starts to put back together those things inside of you that are broken." I guess my tears are tears of gratitude, ever-needing healing, and sorrow that there's still pain.

I hope this video ministers to you.

If you wanna watch our services online this Mother's Day, visit for our 9am, 10:15am, or 11:39am.