Discovering Your True Colors

I'm trying something new with this blog post. It's an experimental exercise, so please bear with me through the change in tone.

I'm going to write this entire thing as a stream of consciousness. I'm not going to pause to backspace and delete. (Funny thing: I just misspelled the word "delete," so I had to backspace. But no more! I'll have to go back to add Bible verses and formatting... but not till I get all these words down.)

Here's a confession: It normally takes me about 6 or 7 hours to write each blog post, not including the preliminary research. It's not because I'm a slow typist. It's because I'm a paranoid perfectionist. I can't get one sentence down without second-guessing the word choice, and cadence, and whether or not people will read it and be inspired... or impressed.

“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” – GALATIANS 1:10 (NIV)

If I'm honest, it's all about impressing you. Whoever you are out there, I want you to read this thing and be impressed. I want you to think, "Gee, this girl really has it all together. She's smart, and deep, and funny, and by golly, I'd like to be her friend!"

Blah... I really want to go back and delete that last paragraph.  That was way too vulnerable. But I just learned from a TED talk by Brené Brown that vulnerability "is the birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love."

I want to have joy, I want to unleash creativity, I want to belong... and yes, I want you to love me. I'd rather have a few deep, but genuine relationships than a lot of shallow ones.

But I'm finally realizing that we'll never get there if I don't let you SEE me. All of me... even all the imperfect stuff. (Just misspelled "imperfect" and had to backspace... oy vey.)

Here's some more vulnerability for you...

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Two days ago, I ate lunch at my desk and thumbed through my facebook feed mindlessly. I came across a photo of an acquaintance of mine wearing a gorgeous dress. She's striking enough to make heads turn in blue jeans and a men's sweatshirt. Put her in a sparkling gown, and her beauty will make your eyes bleed.

I wish I could say that I looked at her photo, felt warm fuzzies, and thanked God for designing her to be so breathtakingly gorgeous. But that's not at all what happened.

I looked at the photo and allowed the needle to come down on a warped old record that's been going round and round in my head for decades. It repeats the same phrases, and it goes something like this:

"I'll never, ever measure up. I'm a worm. I'm worthless."

If I let that record play long enough, an even more pathetic and depressing line will surface: "I want to die."

Please don't call the suicide hotline on me. I love my life. I know that my time on earth is a gift, and I could never throw it back in God's face by taking steps to end it prematurely. I have SO MUCH to live for, and I'm so incredibly blessed.

I recognize that each of those phrases above are fed to me by the devil, who comes to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). He's fed me those lines since I was a little girl, hiding behind the toilet, waiting for the fighting to die down outside the bathroom door.

Anyway, back to my lunchtime emotional breakdown... I tried to get up and go about my work that day, but I couldn't get the record to stop. It kept spinning—louder, faster, screaming inside my brain. Finally, I took a step back and said, "God, help me."

And He did. What do you know?

I felt led to do something that I haven't done in a long time. "I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter, and make believe it came from you..." Remember that old song by Fats Waller? It's from the 30's, you might not know it. I used to sing it when I was a teen whenever I'd write a love note to myself from an imaginary lover.

Whoa, the vulnerability train is getting away from me here...

"And those of us with ravaged faces, lacking in the social graces, desperately remained at home, inventing lovers on the phone, who called to say, come dance with me..." Some more lyrics for you. That one might be more familiar if you were alive in the 70s—"At Seventeen" by Janis Ian.

This time, though, I felt led to write myself a letter from God. Now, you have to understand that I've recently made a vow to myself to stop being so in-the-clouds-overly-spiritual and flakey. So, when the idea to write this letter came to my heart, my head said, "No" immediately.

But I couldn't focus on work anyway, so I thought, "What the heck," and got out a piece of notebook paper. Before I put the pen down, I prayed that the Holy Spirit would inspire the whole process.

Call me overly spiritual and flakey, but I believe He answered that prayer.

Aerial shell — Courtesy, www.instructables.com

Through writing, an image came to mind of a firework shell. I felt that God was explaining to me that he designed me to be small, with nondescript casing, but inside—he packed something explosive and beautiful.

I felt Him say that He designed me with a timed fuse, and that I'm already on fire with His Spirit. If I wait for it, he'll send me soaring upward... I felt Him say, "My child, you are loud, you are beautiful, and you are big." And I had a sense that, once I allow that stuff to show, it will all point to His Greatness—the love and power of my amazing, all knowing Creator. (Related verses: 1 Samuel 16:7; Isaiah 53:2-10; 1 Peter 3:3-6.)

I'm sharing this on my blog, because I know that's true for you too. Yes YOU, reading these words right now. Level with me—you've struggled with worthiness too, haven't you? There's something that you're ashamed of, and you're somehow convinced that people will reject you if they knew who you really are inside.

And that makes it a struggle to enjoy true connection with others.

Don't pat me on the head for that deep insight in bold on the line above. I kinda stole it from Brené Brown. You should take some time to watch her TED talk (she also did one on Shame).

What she didn't share, though, is that you were knit together in your mother's womb by a loving Savior who knows you inside and out (Psalm 139). You weren't a mistake. Take it from me: my conception was unplanned and I could have been aborted. But God let me live. He let YOU live.

So what are we going to do with this gift of life? I don't know about you, but I'm fed up with living to please people. People are fickle and relationships are transient. I'll never find real rest for my soul if I keep living moment-by-moment in pursuit of your approval (or his approval, or hers, or my parents', or my coworkers'). The same is true for you.

“Our hearts are restless, until they can find rest in you.”

Augustine of Hippo (354–430), in Confessions

Okay... my baby is waking up from her nap, so I have to come in for a landing.

Take a deep breath. And know this:

God approves of your existence. (See Revelation 4:11.) He loves you, loves you, loves you. He wants to shower you with kisses from head to toe the way I'm about to kiss my little one once I lift her from the crib. If you're a man, you might be uncomfortable with that illustration. But think back to yourself as a little boy and take this in: Your Daddy loves you.

Pause and think about your life...

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Who are you living to impress? Are you clamoring for the affection and approval of someone (or a group of someones) in particular? If so, you gotta put an end to it. It's not healthy. That sort of drive will lead you to compromise who you really are inside in order to meet their expectations.

Here's another thing about fireworks (I watched this video because I love science and wanted to learn more)... Aerial shells contain these little balls of chemical compounds called "stars" or "effect pellets" (they contain salts... which reminds me of Matthew 5:13-16). You'd never know by looking at these little black wads that they contain the capacity to explode into a vibrant display of colored light. Only the shell's creator knows just what compounds are inside, and what colors they're capable of producing.

So, live to soar upward and meet your Creator in the sky. It's time to let your true colors show. Take chances. Let people finally see you and hear you, for crying out loud. The fuse is running short. Let the REAL YOU rise and shine.

One more nugget for the road... I want you to know that as long as you're plugged into the Holy Spirit, your light—your brilliant display of God's grace and mercy in your life as you function in your gifts—won't burn out (see Zechariah 4:3).

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"Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever."

–Daniel 12:3

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