Pretending Purpose: When You Realize Your Purpose Was Built on Sweat, Not Spirit

I am acquainted with all my titles: Writer. Mother. Professional. Emotional Support Human. For decades, I could tell you exactly who I was and what I was called to do. My identity was a fortress, built brick-by-brick through relentless doing. But lately, when I sit down to define my true, God-given purpose, the one that isn't tied to a paycheck or a tangible outcome or result, I feel terrifyingly blank. The emotional insecurity and the anxiety are so loud, they drown out every answer. Suddenly, the woman who had it all mapped out feels like a clean canvas with no artist in sight.

Feeling this lost is deeply uncomfortable for a woman who has been working since the age of twelve and providing for herself since eighteen. My entire adult life has been a testimony to self-sufficiency. If something needed it done, I did it. If a problem arose, I solved it. This habit of constantly doing to take care of myself has spilled over, hardening my heart against even God’s care. It makes it hard to truly believe He will take care of me, because I’ve always been my own safety net.

So, when the “pre” mid-life crisis confusion hit, I reacted the only way I knew how: I hustled. I started new projects, researched new ventures, and tried to "self-soothe" and "self-correct," hoping that doing more would somehow reveal more. But it only resulted in more exhaustion and even greater confusion.

Then came the intervention. In a moment of sheer exhaustion, the Lord invited me to be still and wait. To do absolutely nothing.

This felt like an impossible demand. For people like us, the doers, the fixers, stillness feels like negligence. But the question that pierced through my anxiety was this: Were the things I was doing in "purpose" really my purpose at all, or was I simply operating from a place of selfish ambition and fear?

My intrinsic questions prompted a thirst for God and His Word, not to understand me and my purpose, but to understand Him. My frantic search for my own identity needed to cease so I could focus on the majesty of the One who created it.

This is the promise that is slowly quietening the chaos in my spirit:

"Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth." - Psalms 46:10

If you, too, are navigating this period of purposeful blankness, here is the wisdom I am clinging to:

1. Surrender the Control, Not the Care: It’s okay to admit you cannot shoulder the weight of your entire life anymore. That independence that served you at 18 will sabotage you at 40 if you don’t let God be God. Stop confusing His provision with your production.

2. To Know Him, Is to No You: Stop searching for the What and start focusing on the Who. Your purpose is intrinsically tied to the Creator. The deeper you go into His nature, the clearer your own will become.

3. Transformation Takes Time: You are not a microwave meal. You are a masterpiece in progress. It is okay to feel lost. Healing and revelation are a process, not an instant event. Be patient with the quiet.

   
   

Continue to write your story, one healing page at a time... QP