Being oneself is always a challenge, for most of us may not really know ourselves well enough to be that which God has created!  For one reality always remains: Our selves are constantly evolving.  Yes, God works with us throughout our lives– especially if we desire so, and especially when we yield to the interplays of varying life relationships and situations sent our individual ways.

But there are innate aspects to our being and personhood of which we are given–those aspects that are chosen for us and create who we are before some of the outer infringements of culture and society begin to tempt us to explore and adopt that which may not be who we are or were meant to be in God’s will.

How do we know who we are, intended by God?  God progresses us much as a plant begun by seed deep within the folds of soil.  We grow up in a location and are affected by the variables of nature: other plants, people, birds, animals, and soil condition; and of weathering relations and experiences in all life’s storms, doldrums, dark and light.

I saw these hoodies in TJMaxx when scouting grandchildren clothing.  An older grandmother commented on some that said “Peace and Justice”, but I exclaimed over the “Be Yourself” motif saying: “May all persons discover and learn to be and live who we are each day of  our lives!”

There is an innate, divinely distinctive self deep within each of us who God fashions and illumines, as we grow in this great progression of breathing and being.

How do we know we are being ourselves in God’s will?  (Certainly the inner becomes muddied often enough.)  I am learning to note when there is peace and serenity within….  My mind is not distracted nor the body focusing on pain when what I am thinking, speaking and doing seem to flow in deep and joyous rivers toward some expansive sea.

Then at other times (for me when thinking somehow I should be or do more what the temporal may incite or tempt) I become frustrated, irritable, and speak with strain, upset, or harshness.  Then the physical pain dominates; the feelings of inadequacy disrupt the inner and outer quietude; the deep and joyous rivers freeze with no seeming outlet.

God provides the deep and joyous rivers.  He also allows the frozen frustrations to guide us and remind us as to who, what, where, when and why we be and are and do.  The virtues glow when we are as we are to be; the vices riot when we are not as we ought.  While what we learn and re-learn of ourselves may not be what we might choose in varying seasons of life, we discover this truth:  peace and serenity are beacons in any given time or clime, for knowing we have found ourselves.

And we learn to love that which God has chosen for us, and to create and develop with Him, the wholly holy persons we are intended to be.  The outer does not the inner make. But inner and outer, in tandem with our Creator, enhance the self as to beautify our lives and the lives of others.  The world becomes a lovely realm of humility in acceptance.