Who Do You Want To Be?

I vividly remember finding myself staring head-first into a collision with depression in the summer of 2016. I felt stuck, numb, trapped. And I didn’t know what to do.

More accurately, I didn’t know who I wanted to be.

In the course of a few short months, I had embraced risk and change and adventure with both hands making my second cross-country move to launch a business, and after the adrenaline wore off, I was left with the deafening pressure of next…

What client would I sign with next?

What speaking gig would I book next?

What would BecomingMe.TV do next?

As I listened to the voices and ideas and excitement circling around me, I was excited, too. I hustled and worked my heart out, but collapsed exhausted in my parents' living room six months into my entrepreneurial stint feeling too empty to cry.

It was here, in the unknown, that I was reminded that I do know, I’ve always known, who I wanted to be. In my fear of failure, my Dad looked me straight in the eyes and said a statement I haven’t let out of my sight since: “Emily, you know who you want to be. You just have to choose to be her.”

In that moment, the fog lifted. The lightbulb in my head flashed on, and I unlocked the bars to the prison I had trapped myself in. The pressure and ideas and questions and next, next, next swirling around me? It was there and it was real. But it only consumed me because I allowed it to. I gave external pressure the permission to begin defining my life, my story, who I’m becoming, and it left me standing empty-handed in the middle of a prison cell. The funny thing is, I had the key to set myself free all along: the freedom to choose.

Deep down, we know who we want to be. I’m not talking “do” here. I’m talking “be.” Please don’t mistake the difference. I haven’t always known what I wanted to do—career, school choices, what car to buy, where to eat for lunch—but I have intrinsically known who I want to be: a woman who loves Jesus, daily ditches the pursuit of perfection, relentlessly pursues becoming who God has made me to be, and helps as many women as I can become who God made them to be, too. That’s it. How that’s carried out changes as I grow… the methods change, but the who, the why, doesn’t.

Far too often, we allow other voices, circumstances, expectations, challenges, and life to dictate who we are, what we should do, who we should be, and who we should become. But here’s the thing—no one else—no circumstance or person—has the power to be you. Only you have the power to choose to be who God made you to be. You can choose to be who everyone else tells you to be, or you can choose to be who you know you want to be… who God made you to be… all along.

Warrior friend, who do you want to be? What’s the first thought that comes to mind? Don’t overthink it. Today, I pray I’m looking you in the eyes through this YouVersion Plan, reminding you of the truth that woke me up before what could have been a downward spiral with depression in 2016. Wherever you are, no matter what you’re facing, warrior friend: you know who you want to be. You just have to choose to be you.

Respond:

Spend time journaling and talking with God today, asking yourself the question: who do I want to be? Then, choose to be you!