Summer has a way of exposing things. Not in a harsh way. In an honest way.
The school year ends, the schedule loosens, and suddenly there is a little patch of unstructured time where you can hear yourself think. And what you may be hearing in that quiet is something like this. I do not really know who I am anymore.
That is not a small thing. And it is not a sign that something is wrong with you. It is a sign that you have been living for a very long time as someone else’s translator, manager, peacemaker, and emotional thermostat. And when you finally get a moment to set all of that down, the silence feels disorienting.
A reader said something on the blog recently that I cannot stop thinking about. She wrote that most of us really need to drop the “find myself again” narrative, because many of us never knew who that self was in the first place.
As small children, we were taught our feelings and wants and needs did not matter, and so we ended up in marriages that told us the same thing. She suggested reframing the question. Not “Who was I before this?” but “Who is God calling me to be now?”
Because for many of you, going back is not the goal.
There is no pristine pre marriage self waiting in storage. The goal is becoming. The goal is meeting the woman God has been forming through every painful chapter, every quiet prayer, every Scripture you clung to in the dark.
Maybe you have been so used to managing his moods that you forgot you have moods of your own. Maybe you have been so used to anticipating his needs that you forgot you have needs of your own. Maybe you have been so used to muting your opinions that you cannot remember what you actually think about anything.
Maybe you have been so used to being the strong one that softness feels like a foreign country.
But here is the truth. The woman God is calling you to be is not louder, busier, or more polished. She is more honest. She knows what she likes. She knows what she does not. She can sit in a room and not perform. She can be loved without earning it. She can rest without guilt. She can say no without writing a paragraph to defend it.
That woman is not the woman you used to be. She is the woman you are becoming. And summer is a kind season for her to start showing up.
Psalm 139 says God knit you together. Not the version of you that survives. The actual you.
The one with preferences and gifts and a real interior life. He has known her all along, and He is not waiting for her to get it right. He is delighted to walk her into the open.
What’s your next right step?
This week, take ten minutes. No phone. No agenda. Just a notebook and a question.
What do I actually want this summer? Not what would make everyone else happy. What would feed me? What would make me feel like a person again?
That question is not selfish. That question is sacred.
The woman God is forming is not behind you. She is right in front of you, waiting for you to notice her.
