I have felt pushed further and further to discover who I am in the past couple years. By that I mean through various circumstances and opportunities I have felt an invitation to redefine and own who I am and who I want to be. This is probably a lifelong process, at least I hope it is, but I have noticed something unique about the process being in my early twenties. I left home and have been forced to rediscover who I am separated from the things I thought made up my identity for a long time. I carry those things with me, but I am uncovering new things as big as lifelong passions and as simple as things like my personal style or new demeanors in which to carry myself. Thanks to opportunities, relationships, failures, successes, God's help, my own commitments, etc. I am really beginning to fall in love with who I am.
That might sound a little funny, but how wonderful is that? I wish we all could feel that way. That is most definitely what God wants for us. We receive so much divine love everyday, and this is meant to inspire us to give love back to the divine, to ourselves, and to others. We must do all three, and this is something I feel I am finally truly figuring out how to do. But I needed to embrace more of who I was before I could love myself in the ways I felt God calling me to do.
I think my time in university, my year in India, my move to the PNW, my relationship with Zack, and my life with L'Arche (in addition to a number of other events) have all helped me discover and make decisions about who I want to be. I no longer feel like I need to fit into any molds or meet strange expectations. With lots of hard work and plenty more to come, I am uncovering more and more of what it means to be Parker; and thankfully, I really like him.
Keep peace and keep creating,
Parker <3
