So, who are you, really?  Often when I think of this question, I would identify it more closely with younger people.  Tweens, teens and young adults who are learning about their personality, likes and dislikes, all of those traits that God threw in the mix when he created them.

As the busyness of living life presses in, it seems that those questions get cast aside for awhile in most women’s lives.  The typical gal I know has a life that has followed a pattern something like this:

• Attend and finish college
• Get married and have children (perhaps not always in that order)
• Dive into life raising children and/or also working outside the home – career building
• Carry this on for years that seem like so many but that pass in the blink of an eye
• Realization that life/marriage/parenting/career hasn’t turned out quite like you imagined OR
• Seeing the main areas of life fill out nicely but feeling a sense of wanting MORE…to DO more…to BE more.

We have hit what I like to call the midlife growth spurt.

Now, I’m going to make a contradictory statement.  It doesn’t seem like these two things should be able to coexist and yet I would argue that they do:

You find yourself at a place where your children need you less (or in different ways) than they did when they were little.  At the same time it seems that you are busier than you have ever been.  I’m not sure how that works but it’s life and so we figure it out.  And so, in this newfound place of older children who aren’t as needy and more (?) time to use as you wish, you find yourself with some options.

The freedom of time we gain right about now mixed with this desire to find deeper fulfillment or more meaning in the work we do leaves us with some glorious possibilities.  These two facts have comingled in my life with a growing knowledge of God and deepening relationship with him.  This is the best type of wrench to throw in a plan.  Here’s what it looks like:

We will wrap up this month of Fortyologie by pondering some questions that can help point you in the direction you should be looking, growing and going.  God does not desire to hide his will for us but I do believe there is some searching that comes with the territory.  The searching isn’t so much God hiding anything as it is his way of drawing us deeper and deeper into himself.  You won’t just find your way; you’ll find God in the process which is the BEST discovery to make!

Everyone has things they already know about who they are and what they are made to do (even though some people don’t yet know what they know.)  From roles that fit or don’t fit you, to experiences of passion and fulfillment or an inner knowing of what you’re made for, many life purpose clues are already present.  Tony Stoltzfus

Stoltzfus describes them as clues, I think of them as puzzle pieces.  They are all laid out on the table; we will need to do the work of piecing them together.

Here are two questions to get you started thinking:

#1 – What do you already know about what you were made to do?

#2 – What’s been meaningful to you in life?  Where have you found real purpose in living?

There is no right or wrong answer.  Each of us is designed uniquely by a God with limitless creativity.  Would you be willing to share your response to either question in the comments?

P.S.  Working with a life coach is a fantastic way to sift through your life and heart and figure some of this stuff out.  Check out my COACHING  PAGE to learn more about what we could do together.  It would be an honor!