What I Am Of:

My dear reader,

For my First Year Seminar, we are required to write this brief explanation of ourselves and our background. The example (and most of my fellow student's work) begins with the form, "I am from..." I have modified that to, "I am of..." for a variety of different reasons, non of which I can fully articulate at this hour.

Christ's Peace to all of you!

I am of Eve, mother of all living, deceived and misleading her husband.
I am of Adam who shirked his God-given vocation to shelter and care for his wife.
I am of Christ who bore their penalty and mine.
I am of paternal Pilgrim Holiness and maternal Roman Catholicism.
I am of water, blood, flesh and words.
I am of analogy, symbols, ceremonies, and rituals.
I am of Joan of Arc, my first heroine.
I am of Henty, Hugo, Tolkien, Alcott, Lewis, Augustine, Luther, Orczy and other authors.
I am of my ancestors – those whose stories I know and they of whom I know not.
I am of William Wallace, whose name is my heritage, and Robert the Bruce whose tale fires my heart.
I am of the blood, sweat, tears, sacrifices and prayers of the unknown many.
I am of lonely years of longing for friendship and years of self-righteous pride.
I am of the Triune God who crushes to the dust and heals body and spirit.
I am of a broken confession and a soul-healing absolution.
I am of nannies, teachers, parents, and professors who strive to engender wholesome knowledge and train a mind to think critically.
I am of a little goat who taught me to care for a creature other than myself.
I am of a 4H community that took me knowing nothing, and transformed me into a leader, a president, a secretary, and a County Council representative.
I am of a caprine herd that forced me to learn responsibility: to rise in the night to feed premature infants, to break my back shoveling manure, to milk in freezing temperatures, to diagnose and medicate, to throw myself into a cause, to be an advocate, to face wrenching decisions, to grieve.
I am of a young brother’s death in faith.
I am of an Ecuadorean tutor who broadened my world.
I am of Medicine, History, Logic, and Theology.
I am of friends who still care for me even though I wound them.
I am of hours of painful struggling with truth and how to find it.
I am of pastors who gently showed me truth, true peace, and rest; my shepherds and fathers in the faith.
I am of a mother’s struggle to submit to a God-given vocation.
I am of an extensive home-schooling community composed of all types of students.
I am of misunderstood stereotypes.
I am of physicians who live in soil: academicians who work with their hands as well as their minds.
I am of world-changers who keep to the background: those who fight for the life of the unborn in obscurity.
I am of poetry and drama.
I am of hymnody and song.
I am of “A Man for All Seasons” and the story of Thomas Moore who hid himself behind the Law.
I am of the forests and lakes, the pastures and gardens, the orchards and back roads.
I am of siblings who have loved, hurt, forgiven, teased, challenged, and demanded, with whom I have laughed and cried, argued and pondered.
I am of all those things which I cannot here put into words.
I am of things which have yet to be.
I am of perfection amidst impotence, holiness within impurity, faith through unbelief.
I am “simul iustus et peccator” – God’s own child.