June 19th, 2020: Identity and Values

 

Many people have lost their jobs during the last few months due to Covid-19. The economy doesn't appear to recover soon enough. As I talk to people about their worries for the future, there is more than just the loss of income that we are talking about.  Many have journeyed through the conversation of self-worth and identity. Some of us who are doing pastoral care counselling, we have been talking about some of the possible worst scenarios if this pandemic continues. Loss of identity and loss of hope tend to go together.

A) We usually answer the question of who we are with we what we do for a living. It is even harder when we lost our employment between the age of 45 and 55 because a big chunk of our identity is gone with it. Somehow we lose our framework for our security when we lose our work. There is no anchor point for us to know how to manage our our well-being. Some are too overwhelmed to think straight.

B) Yet, it is not a bad time to talk about the vision for our life when we are dealing with these types of significant changes. It is not easy because many have not asked considered who they would like to be a few years down the road. Filling the blank space these questions concerning the vision for life is one of the most soul searching exercises that we might have to go through.

C) The next segment of our conversation is always about personal values that establish a value statement. that will be used to articulate the vision which we have for ourselves. It is a critical step in redefining who we are because we need to look beyond the trivial and circumstantial evidence of life . It is about our relationship with ourselves and others. We then find out that we need to re-evaluate some of these relationships and make sure that they belong to our vision of life.

God created us to be relational beings, and much of our life worth defined by the meaningful relationships we have. The real richness of life is not about finance. It is about how much people will miss us due to our relationships with them.

Ephesians 1:16-18 “Do not cease giving thanks for you, while making mention of you in my prayers; that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.”