I Don't Know Who I Am Anymore: Restoring Your Identity Shattered by Grief and Loss

By Carole Holiday

No stranger to heartache, Carole Holiday artfully braids together her story of overwhelming loss with biblical insights and delicious recipes from the little cottage on the lane--the cooking school she once owned. Carole's journey offers hope that after the ravages of grief and despair, God can bring good back to life through faith, food, and fellowship.

How do you survive when everything that gave meaning to your life suddenly disappears? Grief can spark the question, God, when will you see me? Carole Holiday has weathered heartbreaking loss and the despair that whispers, "I don't know who I am anymore." Through her trials, including divorce, job loss, and heart surgery, she has learned that deep grief carves space for a deeper ability to love.

Readers who have been shredded by suffering, who have lost hope in God or in life being good again will

• unpack what it means to be made in God's image;
• learn how to redirect doubts and despair toward a God-filled identity and purpose;
• understand that loss offers an enormous capacity to feel more deeply;
• discover that even though rejected by those they most loved, they still matter to God; and
• be reminded of the truth that sadness and faith are not mutually exclusive.

 

In her unique, lyrical writing style, Carole shares her story of grief and explores biblical teaching that offers a God-given purpose after pain. As an extra dose of comfort, she seasons her story with savory recipes from a cooking school she once owned, where she learned firsthand the healing that takes place around the table. Carole's humor and warm encouragement gently remind readers that God has good for them--even in a season of severe loss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Sep 19, 2023
• ISBN: 9781400239405

Carole Holiday

Carole Holiday spent twenty years on business stages encouraging entrepreneurs. She subsequently owned a cooking school located in a turn-of-the-century cottage. At a season in life when many would retire, her daughter challenged her to write. She shares stories from years of shenanigans and serendipities and, yes, heartbreaks. Carole lives in Costa Mesa, California, happily surrounded by her grandchildren who still think she's really cool. She would respectfully ask you not to tell them otherwise.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

THE NIGHTMARE LIVING IN THE CLOSET

Probably one or two moments in your whole life you will hear a dark whispering spirit, a voice coming from the center of things. It will have blades for lips and will not stop until it speaks the one secret thing at the heart of it all. Kneeling on the floor, unable to stop shuddering, I heard it plainly. It said, You are unlovable Lily Owens. Unlovable. Who could love you? Who in this world could ever love you?

—SUE MONK KIDD

It returned every night like clockwork, stalking my sleep. Within its angry visits, a phantom voice sobbed, I can’t find me anywhere, and not recognizing that as my own cry, I remember thinking, That poor, poor girl. She can’t find herself anywhere.

It’s one thing not to be able to find your keys, or to be lost without your phone’s GPS, or even lost in a sea of confusion, like when you’re trying to buy some simple bottles for your sister’s baby shower and are overwhelmed by the soaring wall of new and improved nipples. But to be lost because you feel as if you’ve disappeared? To be lost because no one can see you? To be lost because no one can feel your pain? The stab to my stomach reminds me of how deep a grief that is.

This is not just, Gee, I don’t feel so good about myself today. It’s waking up at three o’clock in the morning and googling, Can human DNA be rearranged? It’s wondering about loss at the cellular level, as if your very own double helixes—those twisted-ladder genetic strands carrying your identity—suddenly unfurl, flapping in the wind. Your DNA, the code that makes you you, is picked clean, much like you might hold a sprig of garden rosemary and slide your thumb and forefinger down the stem to strip off the leaves. Denuded. Empty. Used. Discarded. Thrashed and trashed.

Grief is notorious for sweeping in under surprise attack—a party crasher bearing gifts we didn’t ask for, which can’t be exchanged or returned. Our sense of who we are in the world vanishes, stolen by a thief in the night, along with familiar pillars crumbling under the weight of the uninvited event. Unplanned. Unpromised. Unscheduled. It waylays us. And when the smoke clears, the battleground is littered with casualties from the war between life as you want it to be and life as it is now.

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Grief is notorious for sweeping in under surprise attack.

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On one side, in the land of life as you want it to be, predictability reigns. White picket fences encircle modern farmhouses (preferably flipped by Chip and Jo), showcasing sleek counters, cool art, a good-looking and pedigreed partner, and a Peloton perched in the corner. Add to it the ever-so-humble, teensy-weensy expectation of health and wealth, hand-painted on a weathered barnwood sign centered over the fireplace, two and a half children who adore school and us (not in that order, naturally), a fluffy Fido for the Christmas card (shelter rescue, of course), a trending TikTok account and just enough views to show we count, but not so many as to cast doubt on our humility. Tack on a fat 401(k) and a remote-from-home career shared with a spouse who crafts steamy love letters and perfect matcha lattes every morning after a five-mile jog. Heaven on earth.

On the other side of the tracks, though, where the dry brush grows a bit thicker, in the camp of life as it is now, just one word ignites our grief. Voilà! Pick one, any one. The weeds draw the spark, and a wildfire erupts, sweeping through the landscape of our lives.

Affair . . . Infidelity . . . Betrayal