Yup. I forgot I was going to try to post one per week. So here is this week’s post in which I will be more direct than I typically allow myself to be at my blog. If you don’t want my honest perspective, please don’t keep reading. My passion is coming out quite strong just now.
I am what I am. I may rub some people wrong, but erasing parts of me won’t change that. So I will stand up and be me, as kindly as I can.
Most of the time, I deliberately refrain from sharing things that I know are offensive to others. But sometimes, because people live in different places than I do, because we all view life through our own lens and rarely see things the same way, I end up offending people anyway. Every time someone speaks into my life to tell me to change something, do something, be something, I respond in one of two ways: I reflexively change/do/be as I’m told to make the other person happy, or I completely shut down.
In my opinion, I shouldn’t have to do either. I suppose I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve realized that if I change or shut down what I have left of me, there isn’t going to be anything left of me that I LIKE. I will become someone else’s definition of who Kelly should be.
But the thing is, Somebody already defined who Kelly is. I believe that when God created me, He made me exactly the way He wanted me to be – from my heart reactions clear through to my DNA. He always desires for me to be like Christ, but never wanted me to BE Christ.
When Jesus was here on earth, he had a lot of characteristics that good Christians pull out to emulate and hold over other Christians, but I think that sometimes, all we end up doing is describing Him without recognizing that He came so we could KNOW him. It was the book of Mark that first opened me up to this, that when Jesus came, He was I AM. He existed. He was God-in-the-flesh. He WAS. He IS.
I literally do not know how to choose to be something other than I am. I don’t think God ever intended it anyway. If He had, He’d have told Adam and Eve what good and evil were from the get-go instead of leaving them unaware of themselves as they walked with Him. I think Jesus may have been the only human being after them who walked the earth so unselfconsciously as they did before the fall. He had a perfect relationship with God because He was God. He was totally, completely ONE with Him.
That oneness with God, knowledge in deep, ongoing relationship, is what will make me like Christ. Not anything I say or do or put on. My life is not about constant adjustment and readjustment for balance. It is about all-out pursuit of the heart of the One who made me.
Jesus made no apology for Himself for being who He was, not even when He was accused of blasphemy. Most of the time, He didn’t bother explaining Himself, either. He was busy existing. Being who He was. Living. Doing what His Father desired, whatever that was, wherever that was. How did He know that? Jesus was the only Person who ever walked earth without sin separating Him and God.
Except, He wasn’t. Because of Him, it’s not between me and God either. What if God lets me sit with Him and wonder without having to define everything He does? What if having an intimate relationship with the Father means waiting on God when there ARE no apparent answers? What if eternity never changes the person that I am, but I spend it with Him?
Jesus didn’t come to reform us. He came to reconcile us to God, so that if we seek Him right where we are, while He is near, we will find Him, right where we are.
I don’t like who I am because I know others don’t like who I am. I don’t like how absolutely short I fall of God’s glory. But I refuse to live under condemnation because I exist in Jesus Christ. I have been told to reckon myself dead to sin and alive to God, and I DO. I don’t live my life in avoidance of sin; I live my life pretty constantly confessing it and letting God deal with the separation through Christ.
My hope is that my life will encourage others to do the same. Because we all are what we are, and we’ve all tried too hard to change to meet someone else’s approval when the only One who can judge us died on a Cross so we would no longer have to be ashamed before God.
I don’t want to walk all over others, but humility doesn’t require me to become a doormat. I don’t want to offend others, but love doesn’t mean that I hide the parts of me that may rub someone wrong. I HAVE to trust that God intended my “catalytic” person to speak Himself into the lives of the people I encounter, whether it’s the Buddhist doctor to whom I was supposed to speak the name of Jesus or the best friends who have no real idea what to do with me.
I can’t help the truth of my life. I don’t want to trade it for lies that will make me more socially acceptable. But I DO want to learn to love more and love deeper. And the only way I see that happening is if I take this whole mess of a self to Him who loves me and let Him show me how He does it.
If this is my shame, it is also my glory, knowing God, that He is the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
Over the past couple of years I have begun to let go of what I call the expectation of others. All my life I changed to please other people and spiritually it began to suffocate me. I wasn’t the me God created.
Beautiful post Kelly.
“That oneness with God, knowledge in deep, ongoing relationship, is what will make me like Christ. Not anything I say or do or put on. My life is not about constant adjustment and readjustment for balance. It is about all-out pursuit of the heart of the One who made me.”
Amen!
“Somebody already defined who Kelly is.”–I like that. Sometimes I wonder if somewhere along the way I missed who I was supposed to be and ended up this way because of circumstances. You remind me that regardless, Somebody already defined me. Hmmm ….
It was a happy day when I realized that the Holy Spirit was hard at work making me into who I was always meant to be. Not into a uniform version of Christ (and I’d worked hard for years to conform to the version I was shown), but into Sara. That realization has helped me a lot in understanding that God actually likes me. He did, after all, create me.
I like your opinionated posts. But if you want, I’ll flounce away in a huff just to make it worth your while. 🙂
— SJ
Good for you. I had to hit 40 before I really felt more comfortable in my own skin and just enjoying God’s love for me and my love for Him.
I get you, I’m with you, I’m different from you!
For me it crashed when I had a toddler and my mom was trying to conform me to her image: loving disciplinarian. So hard to imitate, I cried out to Jesus in tears, “You made me! You must have a way for me to parent well out of who you made me to be!” So then I listed my strengths against my mom’s and realized where she’s stronng on discipline, I’m strong on empathy. My goal then is to be discipling lover of my child (which does include discipline!).
Thanks for writing a sort of Godly, “I gotta be me!”
On the way home, I was thinking to myself how awful it is to live like this–a person craving public approval. And combined with a displaced guilt complex, I can make thing complicated fast. So I try not to worry about what others think of me. Not everyone will agree with me.
How freeing to not know how to be anyone else than who we are. What a blessing. He loves who I am right now.
How freeing…to now know how to be anyone, but who I am. He loves who I am right here, right now.
Hi Kelly!
I was so excited to see that you poured your post into the Faith Jam a couple week’s ago! And I savored your post, like a slice of fresh made lemon-zest muffin with blueberries. In other words, your words are are treat to my soul.
“we all are what we are, and we’ve all tried too hard to change to meet someone else’s approval when the only One who can judge us died on a Cross so we would no longer have to be ashamed.
…humility doesn’t require me to become a doormat. I don’t want to offend others, but love doesn’t mean that I hide the parts of me that may rub someone wrong.”
I just had someone share some angry words with me because I didn’t met her expectations. I can’t change who I am, so during the conversation, I tried my best to be true to who I am. It is hard. Because we do face rejection. It’s so important to surround ourselves with those who can reflect God’s love and grace to us. And I’m so glad you’re here in the blogosphere being that friend to us so beautifully, Kelly. Thank you for the gift of this post in the jam. ooxx.