Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Being Me (mmm...and figuring out who that is?)

Sometimes I wish I had a blog that was about clothes, decorating, travel.  


I don't.


I have tried to incorporate them. I even tried starting a whole new separate blog on decorating.


But you know what? I simply can't do it all. It's unrealistic.  


I have a job. I have soul care clients. I am trying to revise a book manuscript. I have friends. I have a family.


Truthfully, I often try living in the unrealistic.  I demand too much of myself (over assessment of self).  Which equals trying to fit too much in (lack of margin).  Which leads to rushing and not being present to L O V E, the giving and receiving.  


And you know what, I think we all are on this journey of becoming and realizing who we are and who we are not.  What we have room to give and what we do not.  Where we should spend our time and where we shouldn't.  What we can give and what we cannot.  But like I said, it's a journey.  One filled with valleys, peaks, wrong turns, and turnabouts.  Times of spinning our wheels and times of taking back ground.


J O U R N E Y.


And there is grace for that journey though I am the first one to squeeze it out and self-righteously declare, "I should have known." Quick to get to work on me and forego leaning into His grace and the necessity of dependence and the humility it requires.


T H A N K F U L for new life, we have permission to be L E A R N E R S, students of this new life in Christ. To enjoy the liberty of having NOT arrived (nor fooling ourselves that we have or demanding others should have).  The kingdom life turns it all upside down. And while my flesh rallies against it, my spirit breathes a sigh of relief and basques in it's warmth.


And so, I am learning to be me.  To offer who I am and what I bring. Not you. Not what you are asked to bring.  And that takes time, wrong turns, trying to be someone else and learning to come back to me...rather, the unique way Jesus dwells in me.


Join me this year in asking Jesus, "How can I let you more freely flow through me? Where do I need to create more margin and space to do that?  What will I have to say NO to in order to say YES somewhere else?"


While it may require letting go of things you've wanted to be or tried to uncomfortably fit in to be, press in with me T R U S T I N G our inheritance awaits, the territory each of us is given to take will unfold, and we will encounter more than we could ask for or imagine.


Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. ~Ephesians 3: 20-21

6 comments:

The Journey said...

Word! I'm with you, I am definitely on this journey and it's so refreshing to hear someone who talk about letting go of all those things that we think we should do or that life is supposedly "about" and focusing on God more. Amen and AMEN!!!

Rose said...

I wish there was a *like* button. :-D

Anonymous said...

You have a gift and talent for speaking to the heart.
Thank you.

Susie (Shaw) Fitler said...

thank you anonymous. that really encouraged me today!

Michael said...

Love you, Suz.

Anonymous said...

Susie rocks!