Authentic Me

: true to one's own personality, spirit, or character

worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact.

I've always considered myself to be an authentic person. You get what you get. I am who I say I am. I'm not too complex. I admit my mistakes, I wear my emotions on my sleeve, I do not care much what others think about me. I grew up in the midwest. You have to be a little bit tough to live there. Winters are harsh. We used to joke in Minnesota that it is hard to make friends there because everyone has all of their already established relationships, in the winter everyone hunkers down with their "peeps" and coming to the state from another place was hard to break into and form close relationships. But that is pretty much how it is. You have to "earn" your way into relationship. You have to "prove" yourself worthy. You have to show that you can "run with the big dogs" before you will gain any ground, respect or confirmation. As I've mentioned in the past, I grew up VERY CODEPENDENT. I was a pleaser. I was the "diplomat." I was constantly looking for ways to help people. I thought it was out of the goodness of my heart. But now I realize it was because I was paralyzed with fear that if I didn't do it, my world would spin out of control. I needed to "create" "force" and "maintain" order. Otherwise I wasn't sure I could survive.

Like I've stated before. I was raised in an awesome home in the suburbs of Milwaukee, I love my family, my home and what my parents taught me. I was taken to church, we had nice things, my Mom and Dad worked their booties off to give us an amazing life as a family. But I believe the minute BK and I decided to surrender our lives to the Lord and call ourselves Christians is the day I started gaining new perspective on God's plan for me. God's intentions for my life and how God wants me to live. I have an audience of ONE.... (no more, no less) and in that HE is giving me insight, revelation, and a deeper understanding of my own heart and what it yearns for, and what it needs. And what he is showing me now is that I need AUTHENTICITY. I need to be more authentic.

All the time I've spent "playing" peacemaker, has not prepared me for this day. An authentic Christian TELLS you what they want, what they expect, what they know to be true. An authentic Christian may not agree with you but will tell you how they feel and still want to be united in relationship with you. An authentic christian is not AFRAID of how other people will act, what they will do or what they might say. They wholely and completely trust the Lord to take care of everyone else.

I think what people can't stand about Christians is the facade that we are all SO... OK. That we are like flippin Mr. Rogers. How many of us would one time have liked to see Mr. Rogers chuck his shoe across the room and demand a different style?

Walking with Jesus is a journey and to be perfectly honest it may take me my entire life to get a COUPLE of the fruits of the spirit... but it's totally OK with God. It may take me a while to learn how to talk to my husband or my kids or my friends, but it's the journey I am on with God. I've stuffed a lot of crap over the years. (God loves me even though I say crap)
I know when it's happening. I do it to spare people the agony of having to "deal with" me. But God is showing me that it's not my job to spare people. It's not my job to tip toe around their issues. It's not my job to pacify, soothe and stroke everyone else around me. It is my job to love them yes. But not my job to make their lives OK.

So... as I seek to learn with authenticity looks like and watch how it plays out in my life. I will remember that God is the only audience member I have. He is the most important and where the rest of this journey takes me is up to Him.