Labeled.

Hello.

For the entirety of yesterday's work day my diet consisted of two enormous brownies - and I must say the best brownies I've ever had; nevertheless, by the end of the day, I had a headache - go figure! Instead of walking home I decided I'd walk to a nearby cafe, get a salad, and write some Christmas cards.

With my food ordered, eaten, and only a few Christmas cards written (oops!) I took my tray to the "tray disposal" area and began dispensing my fork and napkin, and placing the plate into the bin. I glanced over at a kid who had been chit chatting away throughout the entire duration of my visit in the cafe and was still going, just a jibber-jabbering away in his high chair - probably around 3 years of age, loud, and never-ending.

That kid oughta be a preacher someday, I thought, I wonder if his parents tell him that. I wonder if they think the same thing and if they'll raise him telling him that...I wonder what he'll actually be.

As I stood next to this adorable rambling boy it got me thinking about my own life, how growing up there were a million hunches, a million guesstimates, and a million labels of Kaylee and her future. Who I was. Where I was going. These "prophecies" became the definition by which I defined myself - and they came from every element of my childhood and every element of today. Everything and everyone we encounter has a direct affect on our past, on who we are now, and who we aspire to be.

A friend once said to me "You know, when we meet someone we tend to pick up on one or two of their traits and fill up our entire understanding of that person with those couple of traits, but what happens is we fail to see all the other dimensions of that person."

You see, sometimes it's hard for me to let go of the "defined" Kaylee. The Kaylee people assumed I was and figured I would become. Sometimes it held me back. Growing up, all I knew was soccer and music. But as the years have passed I've come to know that there's much more to me than soccer and music.

The irony I'm finding as I write this is that a couple of years ago I asked God to teach me who I was. I figured He'd just tell me that I really liked soccer and music, but as I sit here and write this, I realize that in the past couple of years God has strengthened my strengths and somehow even managed to use my weaknesses. He's brought up new-found interests, knowledge, and experience. You see, the process doesn't stop. We're not limited to what we were yesterday nor who we are sitting here today. Tomorrow brings another day yet to live and grow.

So what is it today that's defined you all these years? What "label" have you, yourself known is untrue and yet have been unable to let go of? What do you want to learn more about? What do you want to grow in? Because the story doesn't end with our childhood labels, the story continues on in a never-ending process to become more like Christ - and in that process we can become the person we maybe never thought possible.

Perhaps, the labels of days past are an affirmation of who you are today, if so, beautiful, but perhaps, they've become a sort of bondage telling you that you're all you're ever going to be - that there's no more to than what you are today. If so, press on. Press on to take hold of all you were created to be and to do. I betcha it's more than you could ever dare to dream. "Yesterday came and went. Like a vapor, it disappeared. But you left something behind yesterday. A piece of yourself, a piece of the legacy you're building. Today, you'll create another piece of it. And tomorrow. And all the tomorrows after that."

Cheering you on as you claim, or perhaps re-name your labels,

May you dream and aspire to be all that you were meant to be.

Kaylee