The Good of Being You©

     I can’t remember where I heard this quote the other day but it struck something in me, so much so that I stopped to write it down.  “When you decide who someone is you take away their chance to be who they are.” 

     The person I was as a child or a teenager or even a young mom is not the person I am today.  I’ve matured and grown and learned more about who I was made to be.

     When I was in the flux of my teenage years I was influenced by everything around  me. I honestly didn’t have a real clue who I was. I saw what was presented as acceptable and I moved towards it, wanting so desperately to belong.  It’s what I came into this world looking for, not realizing that I already did.

     As a young believer I found my way into a group of people who would disciple me to be who I needed to be.  It was all about behavior and nothing about identity. It set me on a wrong path, one that would take me years to get away from.

     I carried this into my role as a mother.  I wanted to give my children what I had been given, never realizing what I was doing until they were mostly grown and gone.  I was captured with a need to perform to be acceptable, therefore it was the way I lived in every way.

     I’ll never forget the moment when it all began to fall apart.   My children were gone to VBS with a friend who picked them up and brought them home every day.  I had chosen not to participate as I was in a very desperate place. I sat down in my comfy chair and turned on the cassette tape I’d been given titled, “Spiritual Ambition and Aggressive Striving.”  I knew as I listened that he was describing my life. As he talked of the Prodigal Son story I was moved by the way He described the love and acceptance of the Father that was not based on performing.  I’m not sure I’d ever really heard anyone talk about it that way. I knew something was hitting me down deep as tears coursing down my face turned into sobs. I was glad my children weren’t in the house because they certainly would have thought something terrible was wrong with me as the guttural sounds made their way out.

     The truth of the matter is that I was undone in ways that would change me forever.  Since that day, back in 2002 I’ve been maturing into who I am.

      I write a lot about shame these days because I’ve found it to be something that has kept me broken and bound.  Shame is that perspective of who I am based on what I believe are others’ opinions of me. It’s what I believe about myself through the actions and words of people around me.  Shame is the judgement I’ve cast on myself when not performing as expected. It tells me there is something indelibly wrong with me. It formed a mask which I wore for many years.

     I allowed shame to shape me, mold me and push me into a life of performance and striving to be found acceptable and worthy of love.  I’ve lived under its interpretations and been captured by its insecurities. For years I allowed the actions of others to tell me things that were far from true. It’s the part of me that is slowly falling off as I learn to see myself through the eyes of the One who is love.  In that I’m finding a freedom I never knew. So I write…

     I’m different in so many ways and my desire is that those who have known me for some time won’t decide who I am today based on how I was then. It’s the hardest part of my trail from the past.  I want to scream out “I’m not that girl anymore”. I could easily give way to shame because of the way I lived. 

      Everyone deserves a chance to be who they are today, not who they were yesterday.  It matters.  People change, people mature.

      Maturity is an interesting phenomenon.  I can see it most easily in my plants as they hide away in the winter ground and re-emerge when spring arrives.  Every year you see a little more of their beauty as their time of rest rejuvenates them. They come out in all their splendor to be what they were made to be.  They mature in their beauty and size as they repose.

     For many years I believed that maturity was me growing in my ability to overcome.  I see now that it’s quite the opposite. Maturity isn’t found in growing stronger to overcome adversity but it is discovered in the dependence of enjoying a deeper connection with Christ as my life.  It’s not work, it’s rest. The more I understand how deeply He sees and loves me, just as I am, because of who I am, the more I mature. 

     I’m not the mother I was, nor the wife.  I’ve changed. I’ve matured into this whole new way of thinking that is described throughout scripture.  The more Christ becomes my life the more I find the beauty of who I was made to be. As I lay down my own efforts and embrace His, grace flows.  As a result, love and acceptance begin to emanate from me. I no longer focus on what you may or may not be doing because it doesn’t matter anymore.  I am maturing into the truest thing about me.  

     I am loved, totally, completely without one thing said or done.  I am loved because it’s what God does. He loves, just as we are, until we know what He knows.  

    I am learning the value of dependence on Christ as my life.  I am maturing. I won’t be who I was yesterday, or the day before.  I am who I am today. It’s the most beautiful thing about this life.

    Every day starts with a new dawn, it’s a representation of life.  New mercy awaits us as we wake up to face each day.  

©copyrighted 2019 Julie H Todd