Week 35: Knowing Who You Are and Who You Have Always Been

Each morning my mom would tell me “Remember who you are,” as I headed off to school. I would always smile and nod and say I know mom, but deep down I was a little annoyed that she couldn’t come up with anything better to say. Of course I knew who I was…..duh!

When I was in 6th grade an older girl was picking on me as we rode home on the school bus. I was a scrawny, lanky little girl with long, straight brown hair, big brown eyes, purple wire framed glasses and a lot of energy. By all counts, I was the PERFECT target. She called me names, made fun of my clothes and told me that I was a “WANNA-BE.” Basically, she thought that I didn’t have my own identity, my own style, my own flare….instead she thought that I “WANTED TO BE” like everyone else. This statement cut me deeper than all the other names she had called me. I struggled so hard to stand out, to be an individual and I was the only LDS person in my whole school….the ONLY one…I wanted to make sure I was different.

That afternoon when I got home, I told my mother about the girl who had been teasing me on the bus. With tears in my eyes I said, “Mom, you know the worst part?? She called me a WANNA-BE!” Without hesitation my mother said, “Next time anyone says that to you, you tell them, I’m NOT a Wanna-be, I AM A Be!*” Horrified, I looked at my mom and explained to her that I didn’t even understand what that meant and it sounded totally dumb and I would be laughed at.

Time and time again throughout my life my mom and I would use that phrase “I’m not a wanna-be, I am a Be,” I would tease her and say remember when you told me that dumb thing to say? But dumb as it might have been it always stuck with me. Now that I’m a mother I understand what my mother was trying to say to me. She was saying, Remember who you are, a daughter of a Heavenly Father, a choice spirit, a girl of great worth…you are not a wanna be you are a be. You.Are.

My mother passed away this past January after a long battle with cancer, but I will never, never forget the lesson she taught me that day. Be all that you are, all that you always have been, all that you are to be. Stand apart. Just BE.

I chose this week’s talk as a reminder to all of us that YOU ARE NOT A WANNA-BE, YOU ARE A BE. Remember who you are.

*P.S. If you would like to use this quote please give credit to my mommy, Aida Pena 5/25/1944 – 1/22/2009




MP3

"Knowing Who You are—and who you always have been”

Sheri Dew

Click above for the text.