Who Am I Really? | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: Who Am I Really? | Previous Challenge Entry
By Karen Polk`
10/09/14
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Who Am I Really?

“Alright class, listen up!” the professor commanded, as he stood in front of his eighty seven English class students.
He began handing back last week’s assignments, and continued to speak.
“Due to a seemingly lack of diligence from the majority of you on this past paper handed in, you will do your assignment in class today, sort of like a pop quiz! Right now, for the next hour and forty five minutes of class time, you will write something autobiographical!”
With groans and murmurs, and backpacks being opened to retrieve the necessary writing utensils, the class began the chore of writing impromptu.
Within moments the classroom became strangely quiet, with only the scratching of pen on paper being heard.
I leaned back in the hard back chair, took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “Who am I really?” I pondered.
With my eyes still closed, I sat forward at my student desk and laid my head on my folded arms, attempting to further drone out the pen scratching going on around me.
At last, the scenes began to unfold in my mind. A little girl sitting on her daddy’s lap. Mommy playing at the park with the little girl and her older brother. Christmas time together.
A new baby brother being brought home from the hospital. Loud arguments and things thrown across the room. Daddy packing his bags and leaving. Gone.
I shifted in my seat from the uncomfortableness of the early scenes of family life. With the ink from the pen now flowing on my own paper, the answer to “Who am I really?” continued on.
There’s my mama, now a single mama, working hard grooming dogs in the basement of her home to support her three children. Each day I knew I would find her there upon my return from school, always ready with a listening ear to my chattering about the day’s events.
“Please, Mom, please!” I pleaded with my mom, after finishing fifth grade. “Let me go to the local school and not the special school for the hearing impaired. I promise to do my very, very best! I just want to be treated normal!” I exclaimed.
Walking up the auditorium with the rest of my eighty nine high school classmates, I beamed and smiled at the camera my mom was holding. With a determination to keep my promise, I had made it through the rest of the school years at the “normal” school.
Three months later, I walked onto the campus of a state university. Proudly, five years later, once again in a graduation cap and gown, I received yet another diploma.
Laying my pen down, I rubbed my cramped writing hand. Reflecting on what had just been written, a realization dawned on me. It had been more than about getting those diplomas. It was about persevering in spite of the challenges, and there had been many, but with Christ as my Savior, I had made through each one.
Upon graduation, I transitioned into marriage and eventually throughout the years to follow, a mother of children. Six of them!
With the heavy responsibilities, came a loss of focus of who I was in Christ, and into believing an incredible dose of lies about myself.
Desiring to erase the memories about the next chapter of my life, I picked up my pen and began to write once again. I would include it anyway for the time at the Eating Disorder Treatment Center was crucial to who I am now. I couldn’t erase it. Fear, guilt, and believing lies about myself had sent me spiraling downward emotionally, physically and spiritually.
With years of struggles, healing came at last. It came only as a result of choice. The choice to accept God’s grace and love and the strength from Him to persevere once again.
With class time coming to an end, I putting the finishing touches on my assignment stating, “In conclusion of “Who am I really?”, I enjoy my husband, my children, my life, and especially my relationship with God. With lies and fears behind me as of only recently, my big 5-0 birthday this year was yet another turning point as I vowed to God I would “Move from Fear to Freedom by Faith at Fifty!”, and what joy I have now because of it! That’s who I really am!

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