Who Am I, Really?
By Jessica Brodie
Author’s note: This is the first of a few reflections I’ll share on a mission trip my entire family participated in from July 8-15, 2023, called Salkehatchie Summer Service. All of us—my husband and I along with our four teens, aged 14, 15, 16, and 17—spent a week sleeping on air mattresses in a church building alongside two dozen other volunteers. Our days involved waking up at 5 a.m. and spending the day repairing and rebuilding the homes of people living in poverty in the Lowcountry of South Carolina. The entire program is funded by volunteers and churches who wish to help. Salkehatchie has existed for 45 years and consists of camps throughout the state of South Carolina. More than 200 homes are updated each summer by volunteers, and 6,000 families have been helped since Salkehatchie began in 1978. To learn more about the mission, click here. And if you’d like to see a video of our trip, go here.
“I might look a little wimpy, but I’m a hard worker,” I’d told my site leader.
Days after I’d so confidently uttered those words, I wanted to eat them. There I sat on the prickly grass outside the ramshackle home, cheeks flushed, head pounding in the summer heat, chugging water, and wishing desperately this week of grueling work was a distant memory.
But it wasn’t. It had only just begun, and already I felt shattered, unsure of how I’d possibly press on.
I’d signed up with my husband and four kids to do a weeklong mission trip to rebuild and repair someone’s home, work I’ve done before on my own and absolutely loved. The only difference was that this trip took place in the sweltering heat of South Carolina in our hottest month of the year, July. Instead of inside, or outdoors in mild and breezy conditions, our work was largely on a rooftop with zero shade in blazing temperatures.
And suddenly my identity, that of a “hard worker,” seemed nowhere near true. Instead, I was a dehydrated shadow of the woman I normally am. My head cried out with a migraine triggered by intense heat and sunlight that felt like it was searing into my skull. I’d take a break, then climb back onto the roof to pitch in, rolling tar and laying out shingles. But within minutes, dizziness and nausea would wash over me like a tidal wave, and I was forced to retreat to the shade once more.
I felt embarrassed as I scrounged for something to do to help. The only thing I could do was cut shingles under a tent for those working high above, or roll a wheelbarrow beneath the trees while picking up scraps of old roofing and nails.
“Some hard worker,” I thought, shaking my head. I felt worthless, useless, and every bit of my age. How could my body have let me down like this? Why couldn’t I gather the strength to step up and do what was needed? I prayed for strength and endurance, but nothing happened.
I was a fraud.
I’d spent my whole life working hard. Since childhood, I’d embraced a strong work ethic, something everyone in my family seemed to share. “Mind over matter” was my mantra, along with the rally cry of Philippians 4:13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” I only needed to push myself in order for it to happen.
Yet now I couldn’t seem to muster the strength. Between the staggering migraine and the sluggish dizziness, I was leveled.
Who am I if I’m not a hard worker? Who am I, really?
That night, I chatted with my husband, lamenting what had happened and strategizing how I could renew my strength the next day, which included adding lots of electrolytes to my hydration.
“You don’t have to be a roofer to contribute to the roofing job,” he said, looking me deep in the eye. “Maybe roofing just isn’t your skill set. Pick something else you can do that helps. Gather trash. Be the one who tosses water bottles to the others so they can keep going.”
He was right. As I fell asleep that night, I realized I’d been shouldering quite a lot of pride about my ability to push through and work hard. But there were other ways to work and help. I could pray. I could support the others on my team in their work. I could cheer people on.
My identity wasn’t actually “hard worker” at all. In reality, my identity is “child of God,” ready and willing to do and go and serve in whatever way God needs—not the way I want to help. I needed to let go of my desires and surrender to what God wanted me to do.
The next day, I focused on that. I got to the job site energized and openminded about doing whatever was needed. I tossed water to others and offered encouragement and prayer. I passed up scraps of shingles and carted off trash and spent some time with the homeowner’s sweet puppy.
And that day, I discovered something else: My migraine had disappeared. I was no longer dizzy and heat-exhausted. I connected with my team on a new level. I even had enough energy to head up on the roof and spend a few hours laying shingles in a breeze God sent that afternoon, and most of the next day and the day after that. It was so much fun! At the end of the week, I’d learned how to roof a home, made a ton of new friends, and helped represent the hands and feet of Christ to a man who used to have a leaky, rotten roof and no means to fix it.
The moment I fully surrendered my will to God’s, everything changed.
In this world, we have so many titles nipping at our heels: mom, wife, executive, friend, hard worker… the list goes on. And while we may enjoy some of these aspects, we also must be careful not to let them define us. For while I enjoy hard work, while I love my job as a writer and editor and journalist, while I relish being a wife and a mom, none of these define my identity.
My identity rests solely in Jesus. I belong to and follow Him, and because of that, I am a child of God forevermore.
That’s who I am… really.
Here’s a video from our trip that my husband, Matt, made. :-)
