because you want to be free
Before the bad air from the California wildfires changed how we spend time outdoors, I would run the uphill course from my house toward downtown. Running is not as easy as it used to be–when high school and college races kept me busy every week. And doing a workout inspired by an app on my phone can feel a lot less daunting than suffering the aching hips and the weight of my body, sluggish and heavy, trying to defeat gravity one step at a time.
Running, for me, can be hard. And inconvenient. And–when I’m not yet in shape–painful. But I feel like myself when I do it–like the girl in her dad’s orchard, running between the almond trees, like the woman who wants to listen for God’s voice and have it propel each move she makes.
What we choose to do with our time reveals to us more than just what we love and what we hate to do. What we choose to do with our moments, our days, indicates our response to God’s blueprint when He made us–our living out who we are, who God made us to be. When we say yes to do the things we are made to do, things we do that bring us joy and help us feel the joy of God, in us, we are making the choice to be ourselves.
Why do we spend so much of our days, our weeks, our years, desiring to be anything–or anyone–different?
This is something I continue to think about over the years: what it might mean to more intentionally seek to be only myself. How do I choose to do only things that make me feel the most myself? How do I say no to the temptation to strive to be anything or anyone else?
I consider God whispers to my heart: how can I be more myself–just myself, perfectly myself–in every choice I make, in each decision that comes, in how I use my time?
What do you do to feel most like yourself?
I realize how tired I am trying to be someone other than whom I’ve been created to be: envy and insecurity sneaks in like gray fog curling quietly around my heart. There are so many moments I have trouble seeing, I have trouble feeling free. When Paul urges the Galatians to stand up for the freedom they have already been given, in Christ, I realize how often I let myself feel just the opposite of free.
Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you (Galatians 5:1, MSG).
This has been my harness for much of my life: I look at what I don’t have rather than what I have. I look at what I am bad at rather than what I am good at and what I love to do. When we wish we were more organized, more creative, more productive, more talented, more intelligent (and on and on), we’re blind to who we really are. We’re blind to what Christ wants to show us; we’re deaf to God’s whispers to our hearts.
The biggest problem with feeling insecure about ourselves is the very focus on ourselves and our own deficiencies. (What a waste of time! What a waste of a life! What a waste of freedom!) The point of our lives isn’t to focus on how we need to improve. The point of our life is to love Jesus with our whole heart–and to love others, too.
And because we have Jesus right here, we have nothing in the way of living the free life of being ourselves, with Jesus, right now. Can I believe this? Can I choose to focus on who I am in Christ rather than the lies of what I am not?
Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him (2 Corinthians 3:18, MSG).
Christ’s freedom, in our lives, is wasted, when we don’t live, fully, as the person God created us to be.
We are only free, we are only experiencing Christ’s freedom, when we love Christ and the Holy Spirit in us is the voice we listen to above all other voices. The voice telling us we should feel anxious, afraid, nervous, envious, greedy, lustful, impatient, critical, judgmental, unkind is the voice that needs to be silenced in our lives. Only Jesus–only choosing to love Him and let Him show us who we are in Him–will take our eyes off the imperfections in ourselves and focus on the perfection of Him. And His perfection and goodness will inspire us to live the freedom that is always there for us to experience and live.
I think I’m going to keep thinking about this–but do more than just think about it, too. But first, I want to think about my God and how He loves me. I know He is going to help me, with everything I am, to love Him back. He tells me I have what it takes. And then freedom, I bet, is going to be pretty amazing.
You have what it takes, too. So do something today that makes you feel like yourself–no one else. Because there are freedom and joy and a whole lot of good stuff coming our way–that’s right here. Sister, let’s not miss it.
What is one thing that makes you feel like you? What is that one thing you can do today?
And will you join me for the Loop Poetry Project this week? How about we write a poem that speaks to the investigation of our identity: a poem that explores when we feel most free, most ourselves, most unencumbered, most true. Or, of course, write a poem that explores the opposite. When do you feel most trapped, most broken, most despised, most sad?
It is an honor to read your words. Please consider sharing your poem in the comments below–or with the kind community of Loop Poetry Project. Join here.
Love,
Jennifer
To Love Oneself
I go to find you in the depths of me
as if that is a place to go
while I examine all the moments
of my life as if they are puzzle pieces
cut jaggedly from the whole, belonging unsure.
I want to cup the pieces in one hand,
run a finger over the rough edges,
sing lullabies to smooth their irregular shapes.
Maybe here we find home.
Maybe here we learn to be kind.
8 Comments
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So glad you are using the gift God has given you!
You are such a good writer; something I am not.
I’m so glad God has made us who we are and it’s awesome when we can accept who He has created us to be with our own gifts and weaknesses.
I might not enjoy your gift as much if I had been gifted the same.
There is so much beauty in our differences.
Thank you Jennifer for your blog!
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Lord show me who I am. A child of yours. Help me love myself as you love me and help me see myself as you see me. Help me embody your plan for me. Your will and the purposes you made me to be. Take away my perfectionism and strip me of my faces. I feel most perfect when I am me. When I stop pretending to be cooler, better, or worse off than I really am. When I stop saying what I don’t really feel. And start feeling like me. I find all my joy in my truth On the outside as well as the inside. Take my shame lord and grant me your confidence. Remind me of my truth We are one.
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I am the culmination of a thousand dreams
Knit together
My Father’s hand is steady
I am the waters of creativity
Rushing, gliding
Forging new ways to see
I am everything I am and everything I am not
Simultaneously
I am me
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Testimony of Faith
Have you ever felt stuck, locked in, like someone has shut the door in front of you but won’t let you out….but you don’t really want to get out just knock and tug on the knob half heartedly….
Dejected
Have you ever given up knocking and tugging at the door to looking around and finding that there’s no way out, slide down to sit on the floor in the fetal position, find that it actually feels comfortable
Lost
Have you ever picked your head up and realized that you’re still stuck behind that closed door with no idea how long you’ve been there, stand up to realize that there’s no one holding the door closed but you don’t want to tug on knob for fear it might actually open…
For fear it might actually open and you find that no one is around, no one cares to ask where you’ve been or noticed that you were gone, stuck, lost to the world, dejected from all the efforts to belong to a world that you never felt like you belonged to…
So you stand at the door, hoping….hoping that someone would notice and open the door because you’ve got nothing in you that can open it on your own but that’s not how your world works….
People walk away from you because you don’t walk towards them, people forget about you because you don’t meet their expectations of how you should be
Have you ever wondered why you are the way that you are? Why the world seems to get the secret to life but you are left being the outcast…
The world is not like the tv where misfits and outcasts find a place among each other…or maybe it is but problem is you’re the only outcast…
Have you ever faked so good that you disappear but everyone just assumes youre blending right in….Has that ever been your reality?…..
Stuck, behind a closed door, unlocked but invisible to a world that can do without you and yet you’re still in it….what to do, what to do…
How can I move from the test to the testimony? How can I teach and preach about the love of God when I doubt that it exists for me? Everything is a self fulfilling prophecy but what prophecy is there for me?
Who is there to speak life into me when life is the one thing I which I could be free from?
I know I must anger God by thinking and feeling this way but where is He to lift these feelings.
Faith, hope, love….a faith that leads to hope and that is cultivated by and with love and yet my mustard seed faith sees no hope and feels no love….I trust and distrust and move from blank to dark but where is the light?….God where are you?….I read the Word and fall off because I am standing at the door and won’t open it….I pray but not everyday because it feels so comfortable to be in the fetal position since no one is out there anyway…I commune with other believers but I don’t participate because they couldn’t care less and will all eventually throw me away….
What do I do about that? How can that change? What part of this is a part of the plan and when will my understanding be able to understand….
I find myself fighting the same battle that I continue to lose and yet who can I or should I blame?
God? Satan? My parents?…most of the blame falls on me but me is what I can’t do anything about…where is the Holy Spirit? What is the work He is supposed to be doing in me….but I am to blame that that work is not getting done…
How do you get rid of the idea of a malevolent God who shows no love but is swift to discipline? How do you get away from that? How can I get to the Good Father that everyone talks about and yet don’t even know what a good father is supposed to help you to feel like or experience….
And yet this is my lot, is THIS my thorn?
I just want to feel and believe that there is a reason for me in this world, that I was not a radical mistake…what makes me uniquely special that the only mistake that God was capable of was me, who in the hell do I think I am. And yet….that is what I feel. That is the reality of my inner world. That is my truth.
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Hi Mary,
I just feel led to respond to this because I relate so much! I feel this very strongly, and I just want to encourage you.
First of all, I want to say, I could surely say yes to a lot of your questions in agreement. In fact, a couple of years ago I probably would have said yes to almost everything. Because I really and truly related to almost everything that you said. Especially the beginning.
I have literally had moments in my life, crouching down behind a door in a fetal position or in the shower, or on my floor – crying out to God about how life isn’t fair. And how I felt burdened by my journey of life, and how things just never worked out – and how people don’t really care about me. And how I don’t understand why I’m here or why life is so worth living.
I can feel your pain. I don’t just say that to be polite, but I say that with a true honesty. There are still things I struggle with and there are still questions that I have about why this had to be my thorn, why my sins and my struggles were mine to go through. But I remember that there is this verse in the bible:
2nd Corinthians 1:3-4 – “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
Truly I say to you – God has a plan. He has a purpose. When I decided to follow Christ FULLY three years ago plus now, it was the best decision I ever made in my entire life. I went from a perspective of bleakness and feeling as though nothing could ever change to a revelation of who I am in Christ.
I want you to know that this is not the end of your story, and if this was an artistic rendition of where you are or were at a point, I think you articulated it beautifully, but I want to just let you or anyone else who might read this know that God sees us in these times. He knows what we’re going through and He LONGS for us to let go of that comfort that you mentioned of being in that position, in that fetal crouch and in that state of dejection – sometimes we can find comfort. Sometimes we think it’s all there is – and before we know it, it’s all we see. And truly when I was there, it was all I saw, I didn’t know how to change or how the Holy Spirit was going to help me, and I kept wanting to TRY. I kept saying “I’m trying, I’m trying!!” And my mom would tell me, “You don’t have to try.” And I never understood what that meant, because I was trying.
I was trying to believe, I was trying to be Christian, I was trying to live a life that would be good. However in doing so I was living in religion and not relationship. I didn’t even understand the vast amount of relationship I had with God. I didn’t understand how much God loved me and saw me and wanted me to release my pain into His hands. To surrender myself to Him. I just only saw the pain. I only saw the suffering and I didn’t see His hand outstretched towards me.
I tear up in reflection of it actually. And that’s why I knew I had to respond, because the enemy wants us to feel like we are all alone in this world. We keep facing the same circumstances that make us feel unloved and unseen and unheard. We keep experiencing the same sins and shames and worries and fears. We keep getting hurt and we keep building walls.
And I just feel like God is saying, child, let go!
Let go of your past, let go of control, let go of the pain. Let go. Release. Surrender. Let it all go.
It’s really hard and it won’t happen all in a day, but if anything I just pray you know through this response that it is POSSIBLE. And it can and will happen, as you seek Him and continue to cry out for Him and to Him, He will meet you. God will meet you. He wants to be there for you and He loves more than anything in this world. He loves us. He loves His people. So if you know Him, get to know Him more, and listen closely to what He says over you.
I leave you with some verses:
See what an incredible quality of love the Father has shown to us, that we would [be permitted to] be named and called and counted the children of God! And so we are! For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. (1 John 3:1 AMP)
For I consider [from the standpoint of faith] that the sufferings of the present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is about to be revealed to us and in us! 19 For [even the whole] creation [all nature] waits eagerly for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration and futility, not willingly [because of some intentional fault on its part], but by the will of Him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will also be freed from its bondage to decay [and gain entrance] into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Romans 8:18-21 AMP)
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.[a] And by him we cry, “Abba,[b] Father.” (Romans 8:14 AMP)
God bless you sis, take heart, He loves you dearly!
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Seeing myself in your writing
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Thanks Jennifer for being a vessel
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Thank Jennifer for been a vessel were I can share my pain my hurts my brokenness my sadness I feel so alone sometimes I grew up with out a father life was very tuff for and still is sometimes I feel God has forgotten me I don’t know what to do I feel I am drowning and there is no way out