When I Learned My Life Wasn’t About Me

At a young age, we are taught to share. If we have two of something, we give one up to a fellow friend. If we are playing with a toy and another child wants it, a timeframe might be set. Scenarios that teach us that life is not just about ME.

Then the teenage and adult years happen. I’d like to think that those lessons that we are taught as toddlers stuck, but I have to admit, it is sometimes hard not to get this “entitlement” mentality. Our culture is constantly pointing to what we deserve – a fancy vacation, a new car, a brand new home, a new wardrobe, the latest technology, but fails to mention how those items are not freebies or even deserved.

Then I think about the concept of time – again, our culture clues us in. We should be spending our time on me, myself, and I, which goes against everything I was taught as a kid.

Not having a child for almost 9 years of our marriage, Dan and I definitely fell into a routine. Not necessarily in a bad way, but we were used to just getting up and going as we pleased. Doing what we pleased. Getting home as we pleased. Eating as we pleased.

It wasn’t until after Mazy was born, that I realized that my life truly wasn’t about me. Yes, of course I learned what meant as a Christian that our lives were not meant for our glory, but for God’s alone. That we don’t live this life for our gain, but for Christ’s. But I have to admit, Mazy has taught me all the more, how much life is just not about me. I am not saying Mazy runs my life, but she sure has helped me figure out who I am, through God’s grace.

As parents, we set out to do certain things, but sometimes those things just do not happen. As frustrating as it may be at the time, I could not be more thankful for those diversions in life (hindsight of course). There have been a couple of times recently where Mazy just gets this high anxiety over me leaving. Of course as a toddler, that is completely normal. Though it’s after the fact, that I realize how much my time with HER, is all the more important. She wakes up telling me “mommy back” or “mommy stay” for fear that I might leave her. Sometimes she is okay, sometimes she is not. And I am learning that it’s okay. Yes, there are things I may not be able to go to, events that I would have attended pre-Mazy, but really, God has used Mazy to teach me that life is just not about me.

And of course God uses this to teach me more about HIM. That is the point of all of this. My days are not about me, but about what God is setting out to accomplish in and through me. And He is doing the same in YOUR life. We think that a little situation may not have any impact, but it could be shaping us into the person He desires us to be. When I daily choose to let God dictate my days, and not myself, there is no disappointment. When things do not go as planned, it’s not because I have necessarily failed, but it’s because God is teaching me a deeper lesson. God had a bigger purpose in it.

This is why I can’t wait for each day, when Mazy wakes up in the morning. I have no idea what the day will hold (though I always have plans set forth), but I have learned to be a bit more flexible. When I realize my plans are maybe not God’s and that my life is not about me, that is when I open my life and heart to what God wants to do in my life.

What a safe place to be, but oh do I have a lot of work to do.