One afternoon as I was sitting in the Captivating Heart retreat, I felt the urge to process my feelings and thoughts the best way I know how, in writing. When I do this, I write with abandon. I don’t try to make sense and I literally process as I go. I’ve waited several weeks to share the following passage with you but feel led to share it now.
Amazement and Delight
It is amazing to me how when we are in a different place in life, that hearing the same message can take on a new meaning.
It is amazing to me that I happened to sit at a table that had a royal pen. Writing this letter to God needs a royal pen, a special pen. Not a fancy pen, but a special pen.
It is amazing to me how when I started to write this letter, I wanted to start with “Dear God.” It’s a letter and that’s proper form, right? My heart said that I could jump right in. I didn’t need to say, “excuse me God, can we chat?” I didn’t need to get God’s attention… because I already had it.
Last year after Captivating Heart I came away enthralled with the idea of being enough. I needed to understand what that meant. What it continues to mean.
This year I feel that I am clearly being told that He delights in me. Not “she did well.” Not “yay, Jamie.”
He delights in me. Not my performance, in me. This is not a sometimes thing.
Delights-I love that word. I think I want a t-shirt that has that word.
What names does God have for me? He calls me: Treasure, Glory, Enough, Mine, Warrior, Delight.
I feel at peace. I feel calm I feel…not troubled. I feel Satan nagging at me as I write this saying “You think this is all about you? Are you forgetting to worship him during this worship time?”
All of that in good time. And you know what? I believe that “letting” him delight in me, as in letting myself receive and believe it, is a form of worship. It’s a way of telling God “I trust you enough to let you love me. To let you cherish me. I trust you enough to be at peace in your presence.”
That is a form of worship.
The story of the Captivating series: 
The idea of an identity crisis is a dramatic, sometimes overused concept in my opinion. That is, until you experience it. When you go through having that shift in your understanding of who you are, what you are and how you are, it does in fact feel like a crisis. I’ve struggled to understand my identity in recent years as all my preconceived notions of who I was or what I should be have been shattered in one way or another. I quickly (relatively) accepted the idea that my identity is in Christ, but understanding just what that means has taken much, much longer.
I feel that through attending Captivating Heart in 2012 and in 2013 serving on the planning committee, I’ve been blessed with some of those answers. Do I have it all figured out yet? Of course not. But I feel that I’m being blessed with a better grasp on the concept of identity and who I want to be. In the coming weeks and months, I will write more about these revelations and share them with you in hopes to not only share my blessings, but to hopefully help others who are struggling with the same concepts.