This house makes 35 – YEP you read me right –35 houses- that I have lived in so far in my lifetime. Coincidentally, I turned 35 (gulp) this year, so at least things have evened out a bit. But since sitting still really isn’t my style, I am actually about to close on this house and live in a camper for a few months while I build another one. So by Thanksgiving, I will be up to 37. I am hoping I can change my gypsy ways and stay put there for awhile (and I keep adding stuff to it as I build it, I may have to stay forever.)  :-)

I always like to tell people that 35 number and then watch their faces. It doesn’t carry the shock factor that “I have 14 daddies” does, but the 14 daddies statement is an exaggeration, so it’s not as fun. (To be clear, I don’t have 14 daddies, but there was a lot of “transition” in my childhood and like Mark Twain says, I try to “never let the facts get in the way of a good story.”)

When I tell people that I have moved around that much, they always ask me, “Oh was your family in the military?’ And at first I would just say no, but then they wanted the story and  I would find myself struggling to explain myself. Plus these were usually acquaintances just asking that small talk, “so whereya from?” question and they don’t really want all the gory details. I would never know what to say. So for a while, I would say “No, my mom just got married a lot.” They would usually laugh awkwardly but then would change the subject and leave me alone. Like when people have the audacity to gasp, look disappointed, and then straight up ask me, “WHY NOT?” when I say that my husband and I don’t have any children and then begin their endless sermons of the joys of parenting.  I have discovered just saying, “We don’t like children” usually shuts them up. (Quick hint – never do this to someone. Asking someone why they don’t have kids can be as insulting as asking someone if they are pregnant when they are not- but I digress….)

The truth is that we LOVE children and my mom is only on her third marriage (and the first 2 ended for very good reasons and the 3rd time really is a charm- love you Rusty!) But how to tell someone you met 10 minutes ago that you spent your whole life running to or from something?  So I stick with the joke, but now I feel bad when I say it. Because I know my mom always did the best she could and didn’t like all that moving any more than I did. And some of the houses have been great – some of them have even been very safe. But some were pretty scary and some were very lonely. Some were more empty than anything else -like just a shell. Kind of like some of the people I have known and have even lived in those houses with.

I have lived in apartments, condos, townhouses, old houses, brand new houses, pink houses, Alamo looking houses, one stories, 2 stories, (I don’t think any 3-stories,) one barn, one farm, in the city… I have tried them all. And in a way, it was kind of awesome to live in all those houses, to change all the time. I feel like I found a different piece of me in each of those houses – found out who I was a little more every time I packed what I had and moved on. But I also felt like I left a little piece of me in each one too.

The best thing was that when you move as much as we did, you do get to recreate yourself over and over again. I could find out that people think my laugh is really annoying, and then teach myself a new laugh and try it out at the new school and be a better laugher. The problem with that is that if you do that in enough categories, you run the risk of becoming what I call, “a performer.” Instead of being who you really are, you be who you think all those towns told you to be so that maybe people will actually like you. Then when you finally do have a level of acceptance, it dawns on you that those people don’t even know who you are. You are nothing more than a performing monkey, which is not really a good way to live life.

See, it took me a really long time to decide that I didn’t want to be anyone’s little performing monkey anymore. For one, it is exhausting trying to keep up a front for everyone all the time like that. It’s like running an endless pep-rally and I am too old and fat to be a cheerleader anymore. I finally just got really tired one day.  And the other thing was that once I became a Christian, I started to discover that the real me was quite possibly just fine after all. God told me so himself. He also told me that He made me to be in relationship with others so I had better get to it.

I have always really wanted to have real relationships with people, but that meant that I would have to be real with them to see if they were the real thing too. But this was by far, the scariest part. What if they didn’t like my laugh? Or my sense of humor? Or the fact that I am a giant hypochondriac? What if they find out that while my house usually looks clean, I secretly hoard in my closet and you often can’t even open that door without being buried under an avalanche of high heels and Old Navy bags? What if they flat out just didn’t like ME? Well, that was just going to have to be okay I guess. As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Venturing out of “the bubble” (as my counselor called it) was a little hard. I had created a safe little happy place for myself where people saw what I wanted them to see and then I could stay to myself and feel what I wanted to feel. But the problem was they were “out there” and I stayed “in here.”  So what I really felt… was lonely. So I slowly crawled out of my little cave and laughed my real laugh (which can include a snort on occasion.).And God bless the people who are making the outside a safe place for me to be. There were of course plenty that did not, but many people actually reported liked me BETTER than the monkey. And for the first time in my life, I feel free. Free to be who I am; free to find out who I really want to become.

But having been so many people over the years, it has been a difficult journey to even find out who I really am. As it turns out, that real me, is not even defined by me. I am also not defined by what others think or say, or even by my laugh. Years of counseling and Bible study and asking God “really-are you sure?” keep leading me to the knowledge that who I am is defined by the Most High God who knit me together in my mother’s womb and skillfully and wonderfully made me (and those are His words, not mine.)

You are the same way.

Everything about who we are  – and even more so, who we are becoming – is defined and designed by the Creator Himself. So we don’t need to move to a hundred different towns to finally find out who we should be. We just need to be still.

Be still and know that He is God. Be still before the Lord and be covered by His blood and His word and His grace. Who we are is…. HIS. And when I am still before Him, He tells me that He loves me and He shows me who I am becoming. And He promises that one day I will be with Him and be flawed no more.

Now I don’t have to move houses unless I want to…. And that is strange and wonderful all the same time. But in another better way, a finally in the right direction way,  I am still moving and still recreating myself.  Because it is in this stillness that I can move towards being a little more like Him every day, or at least a little closer.

I hope all those old Christines – the pieces of me that I have left behind all over Colorado, Illinois, Tennessee, New Jersey, and all over the great state of Texas- all come together and find themselves covered and comforted in Him. For just like yours, my real identity is not found in the world, but found in the word.

And it’s hard to explain how I feel. It won’t go in words but I know that it’s real. I can be moving or I can be still, but still is still movin’ to me.