Be and Be Loved

December 2008

by Debra K. Farrington

“How does it feel to be unemployed?” an acquaintance asked me shortly after I left my job to write and lead retreats full-time. “I’m not unemployed,” I thought angrily, “I’m self-employed.” But my anger told me something about my own insecurity in leaving the workforce. I was no longer a bookstore manager or publisher, titles that came with a certain amount of respect, not to mention a regular paycheck. On top of that I’d just gotten married and become a step-parent (my first effort at parenting) one month shy of my 50th birthday. Who I was and where I was going felt very much up for grabs.

As I struggled through the first months of my strange new life, with its unfamiliar schedule and smaller income, I kept reminding myself that I was a child of God. Intellectually I understood that this was all I ever was or would be, a beloved child of God, and that should be more than enough for me. But it took me at least six months to wrap my heart around that identity. I missed the trappings of my former positions. Some days I still miss them. But I know in my heart that being one of God’s beloved children is the most important thing I’ll ever be, and that it is good.

So many things in this world divert us from truly resting in the glory of being one of God’s beloved children. The busy-ness of our days, all the unnecessary things we buy, the perks and respect that come with titles and paychecks, and so much more. Your experiences may be different from mine, but you too may find that the definitions of identity that come from the culture around us are easier to claim than the one that came through our baptism: child of God. Those other identities are so alluring that it is only when we walk away from them or when they’re torn away from us that we come face to face with who and whose we truly are.

I’m not saying that the identities we carry around with us are bad. Being a farmer, daughter, teacher, mother, manager, wife, doctor, grandmother, clerical worker, or anything else can be wonderful. Many times these roles are God-given. But there is something deeper, something that persists even when we lose one of the identities we hold dear. As spirituality writer Wendy Wright asks: “To what extent do we ‘know’ ourselves first as civic and church leaders, or as respectable citizens or conscientious parents or homeowners or degree holders or job holders and not at all as beloved daughters and sons of God? We are beloved not because of what we do. We are beloved because we are” (“Passing Angels: The Arts of Spiritual Discernment,” in Weavings, November/ December 1995).

So the best question when I left the paid workforce wasn’t, “How does it feel to be unemployed?” The better question would have been: “How does it feel to be?” How does it feel to you to simply be and to know that you are loved?

Debra Farrington is a retreat leader and has written eight books of Christian spirituality. Her Web site is www.debrafarrington.com.

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