Who has shaped you?

Twice recently I’ve been asked about my “Faith Family-of-Origin.” Meaning this: Just as we have a biological family-of-origin that is largely responsible for any number of our habits and behaviors, so we also have a Faith family of origin. Church or ministry roots that shape our faith during critical developmental years. It’s been a fun exercise to look back and understand a bit about what makes us tick and why.

As I re-read Calm My Anxious Heart again I had a similar fun experience, something I hadn’t expected at all.

First, it was tremendously impacting to go back and read my hand-written notes from the 12-week Bible study in the back of the book. They were from 13 years ago when I was single, a Sophomore in college, living in a house of 8 RDGs. Oh how different my struggles were back then! Oh my.

It was a joy to read because of this: God has done SO MUCH. I truly was an anxious, insecure, comparing, compulsive person. I’m not angel now, but He has truly been victorious in profound ways in just over a dozen years. Although I recognized my hand-writing, and can now remember the battles, I had virtually forgotten they’d existed.

But what struck me the most was seeing now that the book had shaped me more than I’d ever realized. As I read I kept stopping, amazed, and thinking, “Wait. I say this exact same thing all the time.  I’ve taught this over and over. I didn’t realize it was from her.” I could see how Linda Dillow’s simple words had truly changed the course of my life. 

Lastly, I kept chuckling to myself as I’d read book after book that she referenced that I’ve since then read but had no idea or recollection that she’d mentioned them! That make sense? All the books she refers to I have since read and they’ve become pillars along my journey, but I had no remembrance of her mentioning them way back then!

All that to say that going back to read this book is like returning to my roots and see why I’m wired the way I am. Little ‘ol Linda Dillow’s words are like fingerprints all over me. And I’d totally forgotten.

The thought for you and me? What book or person radically influenced your faith-development in years gone by? It might be fun for you to go back and visit, or re-read, and chuckle a bit as you realize why you do what you do.

And secondly, never underestimate the power of your influence on another person’s life. Depending upon the soil of their heart, your words of truth, your life of faith, your example of love, might radically change the course of someone’s life without them really knowing it. I truly had not realized how profoundly Dillow’s words shaped me over the years. But God knew.

{Q: Who shaped you? And who might God want to shape through you? Thanks for taking time to reflect, and thanks reading…}