It's okay to be me...

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting. ~e.e. cummings, 1955

My husband and I were driving in the car listening to some soft Christian music. I could tell, as many women can with their husbands, that something was eating at him.

"What's wrong?" I asked. He shifted in his seat..

"Why do you listen to this?"

"What do you mean?"

"This! This soft elevator music."

Now I was really confused...I didn't understand how my choice in music could possibly bother him this much.I shrugged and turned the station, but I was still puzzled.

Fast forward to the present. I was commenting on how I wasn't exactly the "happy cheerleader type" and sometimes that made me feel...different and to me different came with another connotation...."bad". He turned to me, pulled me close and said, "That's exactly why I married you. You're different and I love that."

And I heard God softly whisper-- See, that's exactly how I feel about you.

For years, I'd assumed that I had to fit a certain mold. So I changed the music I listened to, the clothes I wore, and anything that didn't fit with what I saw around me. I thought I had to change, and I thought God wanted me to. So I shifted my image...but somewhere in the process I lost a piece of myself and my husband could see it. That's why he was commenting on my switch in music--he was calling me out. What he couldn't articulate was something like "Hey, I know you hate this type of music, you like something else...why are you changing? For who?"

For who? For others. To fit in--because I cared immensely what people thought of me, but in so doing I had robbed the world of the unique perspective and gifts that God gave me to bring to the table. I had silenced myself in an attempt to be like everyone else.

I wonder how many women silence themselves in an effort to fit in--I wonder how many, like myself, think that different is bad. Look at nature: how many different flowers, animals, and fish are represented. Different isn't just good, it's God's plan! How boring if we all looked the same, talked the same, and liked the same things! What good is a body with fifty arms but no legs, hands, feet!

Today I stand and say that I'm different and I love it (side-note: God does too!) I have a unique perspective, unique giftings, and a unique personality that God gave me--and so do you!

There's a lie out there that we all have to be the same---that's straight from the enemy. He desires to steal, kill, and destroy all of God's unique creations and if he can't do that--he'll convince you to do it for him.

The truth is, the closer you get to God, the more like the real you, you become! Go to Him today and ask Him to help you reject the lie and accept the truth--it's okay to be you, in fact it's more than okay--it's beautiful.

Isaiah 62:3
You will also be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD,And a royal diadem in the hand of your God.