I’m going to get honest with you all. Which can be brutally raw but never the less, freeing. This season of life has come with some difficult struggles but has been wonderful at the same time. Here’s a little something I have been discovering and am still trying to grasp but I feel that it is extremely important and must be given an ear. But first, let’s talk real.
Real is when you long to create beautiful art but fail to see beauty in yourself.
Real is when you are overwhelmed and cry hard because it seems to ease some of the weight.
Real is when you can be honest with yourself even when it’s excruciating.
Real is when you neglect your eyebrows and stop looking at your unshaven legs because why bother now anyways?
Real is when you sit and watch everyone’s perfect lives on social media and wonder how to make it your own.
It’s when “what you know” matters more than “who you know”.
It’s when you can’t understand the “whys” and turn to “questioning.”
Real is when life takes you by surprise and you are forced to find new adjustments.
It’s when your plans take a turn and you’reback at the drawing board.
It’s when you have to swallow your pride and become exposed to your flaws.
It’s when you avoid mirrors so you don’t have to be reminded of all the imperfections.
Real is when you find yourself in the pit of “self-pity” and must climb your way out.
It’s when you get stuck in the devouring cycle of comparison.
Real is when you expose the leeches of insecurity that suck the very life out of you.
It is when you have no idea what you are doing but you keep doing anyway.
It’s when you are faced with making hard decisions that redirect your life.
I have experienced and struggled with all of these things several different times. And it can be a very painful experience. Although, we must not get trapped into the thinking that we are here to survive. Too many times it can feel that way but we are not here to survive, we are here to live a life of fullness. In order to do that we must reach for something beyond ourselves, greater than the struggle we are facing. Whether it’s appearance, jobs, friends, family, goals, dreams,…these are things we can’t always change but somehow, they seem to constantly be at work to change us. The funny thing is, we strive to find identity in that which is constantly subject to change. No wonder we become confused! This must not be so.
Where is your rock? Where is that which is unchanging in your life. For me, I came to a realization that with all of my nasty struggles, I must grab hold of something much greater than the pleasures of this life. I have experienced disappointment and tasted absolute disgust but had to keep chewing. I am saying all of this because I want us to grab ahold of the concept that “We are not here to survive.” Life is not a game of survival to see who does it best. It’s about living. Seeking that which is above our self-doubts and expectations of “happiness” and to find satisfaction in a never changing, unshakable rock. It is the only way to live a fulfilled life that can never disappoint us. Because you are no longer living for the pleasures of yourself and others, but for the very thing your soul has been longing for from the beginning of time. Let it cry out and be found. You are not dead, you are alive. Now live.
I want to add one more thing on identity since that is after all, the core of our reactions to this rather unpredictable life.
We MUST understand that God never leads us into something for it to become our identity. That is a mistake in thinking which often leads to questioning God in our disappointments. If we look to something (even a calling) to be our salvation and identity, no matter what or where it is, we will always feel out of God’s will and when unexpected changes happen, we become confused as to why God would lead us to something just to take it away and start accusing Him of the reason for life’s disappointments. Before we go into life or an assignment, we must first know who we are and who God is. But we have to know God first so that who we are can truly be revealed. Nothing will ever satisfy in this life than the love of God. True identity is found in that which is unshakable. Everyone has an identity in Father God. At times, we have traded it, mistaken it or tried to find it through everything but Him when the true reality is this: we will never come to rest until we are done searching. You see, when you truly know who you are, nothing else that comes at you should matter anymore. It looses its power of influence over you.
I wish I could say that I have already attained it, but it is a truth that I must constantly choose. And every time I do, a window is cut from the tedious box I constructed to confine life.
