I want to be someone. 

I was reminded of this as I was perusing thepioneerwoman.com last week, and became envious. A thirty-something woman—who left ambitions of a law degree and big-city life to settle down with a cattle rancher in Oklahoma—has managed to have an interesting enough life that thousands of people read her daily updates.

This woman has it all together. She not only home schools her four children, she cooks the high-calorie/old fashioned way, gardens, takes amazing photographs, and helps hold down the ranch–literally. In doing all of these things, she has enough time left in her day to write about it in a fun, smart, voice. Her persona is, in fact, a brand and one that Gap and Intel use to advertise.

I want to be someone, too. That is my inner struggle. I want to be a cute, petite, whimsical designer and writer. I want you to walk into my apartment and know “my brand”—an eclectic mix of garage sale and antique store stuff that inspires creativity to even the most left-brained person. I want people to be attracted to me—but not in a creepy, romantic way—I want people to give me attention and praise. The problem is that it is stolen attention and praise.

C.S. Lewis, talking of Adam and Eve in The Problem of Pain, said, “They wanted to be nouns, but they were, and eternally must be, mere adjectives.”

Though my desire is that people are attracted to me, I must attract people to God. I must describe God’s character in my own character. I live in the personality that God gave me, with my own set of gifts, but use those things to attract people to God, not myself.