Flipping through photos from this last week*, I came across a video my daughter had taken. I remember it vividly – messy hair, no makeup and in my pjs, I was sitting at our new keyboard and attempted to play from an old piano book. She saw my phone and snapped it up, then began to video me as I played. Self conscious from both my looks and my rustiness of years without a piano, I had almost asked her to stop.
The memory hit me differently today as I began to connect the similarity of my response in that moment and themes that have been coming up in my relationship with God. My daughter didn’t care if I was dressed or ready or put together. She didn’t care if my voice was squeaky, or if I was missing notes or playing slowly. She wanted to capture a moment, an experience. I wanted it to be perfect, she just wanted it to be. My daughter’s love isn’t based on whether or not my life is put together, I have makeup on, or my voice sounds like an angel. She doesn’t care if my clothes are put away or my dishes are washed, if I’m size 2 or 20, or if my hair is blonde, black, or purple (well, she does, but it doesn’t impact how much she loves me 😉 )
Recently I have been prayed over by two different people, and both offered very similar words and visions while praying for me. The theme, it seems, is that I’m trying and striving and fighting, doing all I can. And while God sees it, He’s instructing me to just Be. Still. To just be. To be free. To be me. While processing these prayers, I realized, I’m not quite sure how to do that. Yes, “be still” in its very basic sense is to sit, quietly, contemplative, open. But in the day to day of life, what does that really look like?
And how, exactly, do I just be me, when I’m not quite sure what – or who – that is? So much of my life, I’m pretty sure I’ve sculpted who I am based on what I thought others would accept and love and want to be around. I quieted my loud, obnoxious, blatant honesty and over-the-top-ness, replacing it with someone who was more reserved (and unfortunately lacked confidence). I lost weight. I dressed nicer, dyed my hair, and learned (attempted) to do my makeup. I became slower to speak or respond, which led to a significant hesitance to share my thoughts or opinions at all if they significantly conflicted with someone else’s.
To know me, to meet me, you may not believe half of this. I am not a demure, quiet-spoken person who is perfectly shaped, coifed, and organized. But words, comments, beliefs, and life has a way of sticking with you, of leaving a lasting impact that you sometimes don’t really realize has interwoven into the tapestry of your being until you look back. Somewhere along the way, most likely in small bits and pieces, I lost a chunk of who I was. Of who I am.
But I’m on a determined mission to find her again. To find me again. To introduce my husband and my kids to pieces of a person they’ve never known, to be free to love and free to live, free in God’s presence and free in my purpose, whatever that may be.
And I kinda like the thought of being defiant, determined, and perseverant…it speaks to a kindling inside me that was starting to go out. It seems a good place to start <3
*written April 26, 2019