Identity Change

If I am honest, I have always held some criticism of women who only wanted to be wives and mothers. My own mother was a stay-at-home mom, but she was also a skilled nurse before answering the calling to motherhood. I went to college wanting a family, but set on the idea that I was not there to get an Mrs. degree, but a degree so that I could work and make a difference in the world. And get that degree I did, plus another one, all before I got married, and really before I had decided that I wouldn't get married.

Around age 30, I had pretty much settled on being a career woman, caring for myself and the families of others, instead of having a family of my own. Then my husband came along. After we started dating and got engaged, I still planned to be a career woman. I didn't see work changing that much. But slowly, subtly, it did, maybe not the actual work or my desire to do it, but my focus and my priorities. Suddenly, my husband became my first priority, with work and everything related to it paling in comparison. I felt it was my duty to be home to clean and do the laundry. I wanted to arrive home in time to decompress and make dinner and be present before he came home from work. I wanted to be less harried and more focused.

My job and my career haven't changed. I still work full-time, and am gone more than 40 hours a week due to my commute. But my perspective has changed. My perspective on my job is that I work to have an income, pay bills, and provide for what my job needs to provide for. My goal is to go to work, do a good job, and come home, hopefully with a little left to give. I haven't been great at this, but I am working on it. I still care about people. I still desire to help and serve others and their families, but my primary focus is helping and serving my husband. He is my one and only.

My shift in priorities requires more boundaries and less flexibility when it comes to work. It requires me to continue to surrender my vision of a career path and let my husband and God lead the way. It requires me to find my identity in Christ and in who I am coupled with my husband  (since Scripture says that married people are one flesh). God led me to my career. God led me to marriage. I'm not sure exactly where the two callings converge, but I do know they've resulted in, and are continuing to cause an identity change. May I walk in that change. May I watch. May I wait. May I be faithful as I continue to become who God is shaping me to be.