Nichole who?

I'm going to start rambling so please be patient with me and all of my grammatical errors.

I have been dealing with a major personal crisis.
Major to me anyways.
For the past couple of years I have felt super lost.
That was majorly due to the fact that I was living in the world 100% and not walking with God like I should have been.
So I rededicated my life to Christ.
The mean, lying, selfish, cheating, heart breaking, stealing, angry, self absorbed, vain, ignorant, pathetic ( the list seriously goes on and on)......The old me died when I accepted Christ into my heart and asked him for forgiveness for my sins.
But now that I am on this new journey of trying to live the life of a Christian, what exactly is that life supposed to look like?
For the last 24 years of my life I have found my identity in worldly things.
I seriously have been going through a major identity crisis, it's not even funny in fact it's been pretty depressing. All of who I was before is done, so who I am now? It is affecting every part of my life. From how I feel about myself, what type of mother I am, my role as a wife, how I dress, even how I want to decorate my house, seriously everything. The old me used to dress to attract people. I mean of course I want to look nice, I love when my husband likes what I am wearing or how I have my hair fixed etc. But I mean dressing with lower cut shirts, more provocatively, wanting to wear $200 Joe's jeans, having obnoxious purses that blast the name brand all over them so everyone and their mom can see what money I spend on my things. That desire to do those things was definitely a refection and an issue of what was going on in my heart. As if I needed those people's approval through possession of these "things". And lately I have been struggling with wanting to have those things as my desires again and throwing myself a major pity party. I've started to feel ungrateful for the life I have been blessed with and have been having that hunger to want more materialistic things. The feeling of ungratefulness seriously taints all that you see with a color of ugliness that everything you own and have is just not good enough. I just want contentment again. After all contente is my last name...laugh? ok no laugh.
 Then yesterday while I was driving through Hanford, I saw my dream car.....(totally not going to tell you what it is because it's obnoxiously gaudy and embarrassing) and then the Lord totally spoke to me....."Nichole you need your identity to be in Me, and not in things like that". Whoa.
I felt it so heavy in my heart.
My eyes shouldn't be on that car, or those jeans, or that house or any of those things, my eyes need to be on my Savior who died and suffered for me. I don't need any of that for Christ's approval of me, his approval is based on his undying love for me.

"Who are you? You’re His, He is yours, and you’ve been cleansed from sin. And that’s all the identity any of us need."--Elyse Fitzpatrick


 I seriously feel so disgusted by my worldly desires, literally and totally disgusted. I hate sin nature, I hate that it is a natural thing for me to covet what others have and that I feel that my value and worth is held in  material posessions  in the self centered world of Nichole.

 True transformation and freedom of our self-focused perspective can only come as we meditate and claim God’s love for us. When we cling to Him, lift our eyes off ourselves and simply have faith in that love, our thoughts, mindset, and feelings will be transformed. Let’s not loose sight of the gospel!--Lindsey Edmonds of Passionate Homemaking.


I read this today during my quiet time, and found it to be very edifying especially with what I am struggling with.
Romans 6:1-11

1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin. 8 Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. 10 For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. 11 So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 


What a relief that is. I feel like my "ungrateful" glasses are off, and I can see how wonderful and amazing my life really is.