Who Even Am I?

I’m just really mourning the loss of myself.

I remember who I used to be – who I desperately wish I still was. I used to be the first one to run into the ocean, to tackle someone, or play a game of soccer or volleyball. I was always doing something full of life, and loved to include others and help bring them out of their shells.

Now the most energy I can muster up is maybe enough to smile at someone. They’ll tease me and inside all I want to do is mess with them back and have fun! But my body is so slow and in so much pain that even on a good day I can laugh, but that’s about it. Now I’m the one who is always sitting or lying down and can’t partake in games or fun adventures. I’m the one on the sidelines, to be pitied. I’m seen as quiet instead of who I really was/am/would be, who was/am/would be much more full of life.

My heart and my body (reality) are two drastically different things, and they really don’t like each other.

Not only do I view myself as boring and not really worth getting to know, but now I feel like this is how others view me as well. On top of that, people don’t really understand what I mean when I say I don’t feel well. But how could they? I mean, I look perfectly normal… So there’s the barrier of misunderstanding as well.  

Oh how I miss myself.

Now I’m just a smiling face, but there doesn’t appear to be much more to me than that.

Now, I’m living at about 40% of myself. God, what are you doing in my life?/with my life?

I don’t even feel good being around people much anymore because they can be their real selves, running around, laughing, and messing with each other yet I have to hold back. That’s all I want to be able to do.

Do I need to change myself? Ah I hope not! Will I ever be able to be more of myself again?

To me, there’s no reason anyone would want to be with me much. I know that’s a lie from Satan, but it’s an easy one for me to believe right now because I don’t even really want to be with myself/don’t really like me right now, either.

What can I do, Lord? How can we help this? I don’t want people to just tell me how much they love me though, because I don’t want to rely/only be encouraged by people. I want a much deeper satisfaction with myself and what’s happening. God, why isn’t the fact that you love me and made me this way enough for me? Probably because I don’t understand it.

I get really jealous of other people’s fun, and so sometimes I’ll try to join in! (ex: today with volleyball on the beach). But, I won’t be able to perform or have as much fun as I want to, or know that I could, or as much as everyone else. So I’ll feel even worse for trying - and then failing. Furthermore, those are some of the few times people will actually see me trying and therefore they’ll form their views of me based on those instances, in which I wasn’t able to even be who I really am. So not only do I feel perceived as someone completely different and am hurt/discouraged in that, but I also feel so much worse physically, so was it even worth trying in the first place?

I’m just battling the lies Satan’s whispering in my ear, the pain and exhaustion of my physical body, as well as the mourning of the further losses of myself.

I’m falling into God and asking Him to reveal to me more of Himself, and show me HIS beauty and HIS glory, and how He so mercifully loves me and sees me as perfect and Holy; as someone who is beautifully and wonderfully made to endure her victories, as well as losses; joys as well as discouragements; full-of-life moments and “boring” moments.

I’m giving myself and my personality, gifts, and joys up to Jesus to refine and sanctify. For He gave me a personality and the circumstances to be myself in.

“The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves 

we become – because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the 

different people that you and I were intended to be. It is when I turn 

to Christ, when I give myself to His personality, that I first 

begin to have a real personality of my own.”

 ~C.S. Lewis~