…who are you?

Isn’t that a question we ask everyone? “Who are you?” Where do you come from? What makes you what you are? What motivates you? Who are you?

I am His in whom I should never cease to remember my identity is held for eternity.

Yes, I am a wife, a mother, an aunt, a sister but these are roles. These are parts of who I am, NOT who I am.

I am a Believer. I am a Christian. God must be on the throne of my heart. His instructions, His directives, His Word, His guidance must define who I am. I can no more but Him in a box and live the rest of my life as I please than I can breath without oxygen. I am His. His.

I know His voice. I have heard Him speak. In triumphs and in challenges. In light and in darkness. In want and in abundance. When I am beaten by life and when I lift my heart to Him and He lifts me up.

How can I be so sure? Besides His constant presence in my life day in an day out when as a teenager of fourteen I asked Jesus to come and reside in my heart? When I accepted and acknowledged the God of the universe, sent His one and only Son to be crucified upon a cross and be resurrected as permanent payment for MY SINS? Yes, to all those reasons. Also, because of 2004.

I was deathly ill. My white blood cell count was so high it couldn’t be counted. The doctors had already had my husband call the family in. No one expected me to live despite the massive antibiotics they were pumping into me. Whether I lived or died, was not up to me. Not up to the doctors scrambling to find the source of the infection, revealing things to my only living parent that he didn’t know and didn’t accept, not even up to my husband who was crying as he stood beside my bed. I looked up at him and wanted to assure him I’d be okay. I realized it was not up to me. I prayed, “I surrender” .

Later, I woke to darkness and thirsty. I asked for water. A voice of a person I couldn’t see promised to be right back with it.

Next time I woke someone was lifting me up from my bed. I literally felt an arm behind my back, under my knees (and I am no small woman) as they cradled me to their chest. The darkness rolled back and above me, around me were trees vibrant and shining with light, flickering in a breeze. I heard the roar of rushing waters and I realized whoever had me was taking me there. I tried to lift my head but I was too weak. I wanted to see His face. To remind Him I couldn’t swim. Instantly I heard His voice. I knew it was His voice. He simply said, “Relax, Donna I’ve got you.”

I felt it when His feet hit the water. I felt the water yet I wasn’t wet. He carried me to this large flat boulder in the middle of this river. A river that sounded like the largest waterfall yet whose current though swift was gentle. He laid me with my head and shoulders on that rock. He spoke, “Let it go.”

Next time as I woke I felt the hospital bed, the riverside was gone. I went back to sleep. My time in ICU was for over a week and as long as I was in there, Christ and I repeated that trip to the healing waters multiple times. It was His arms I felt. His chest beneath my face. His heartbeat in my ear. His nail-scarred hands that comforted me. It was in His presence I rested, I healed.

When I moved to a regular room the trips stopped. The imprint of them, the way they’re engraved on my soul, has never left.

See, I am His. Sealed forever. This is who I am.

—-Donna