Everyone is talking lately about being real, about getting down and dirty, and sharing our hearts with everyone....I believe that is exactly what this world needs. These are dark times, people are hurting. I can't even imagine all the things people are dealing with on a daily basis. They need something more! People need people. They need real relationships. They need people to tell them the truth, not throw bible verses and church-ese at them. They need open and honest hearts that are willing to live life with them. To walk with them through the every day things, dealing with kids, husbands, work, cooking dinner, crying alone at night, aging parents, grumpy neighbors, hating the gym, finding their purpose....the big and the little things. We need to get down in the trenches and truly be their friend.
Understand me here....I didn't say to sugar coat things, and tell them everything is going to be ok. I said to tell them TRUTH! Does life suck sometimes....yes....but there is MORE!! There are choices that can be made to change things. People that are willing to be a real part of their life, and stand there with them, and walk through ALL the crap together.
But it has to start by us to stop hiding behind our Christianity, stop hiding behind the title of Christian. I am still human like everyone else...I am a woman, wife, mother, hard worker, overly sensitive, insanely creative, loving, scared human. I still deal with STUFF everyday. Being a Christian does not make me perfect. Like I said, I love Jesus but I cuss a little. I get angry, and yell at the kids. I get upset, and cry for no reason. I make wrong decisions. I do bad things. I do not live a perfect life. Do I try? Yes. But I don't always succeed, and that is completely OK! At least I tried. Each day is a new day, a new time to try again, to do better, to learn from what went wrong yesterday.
I used to say that I wore a lot of masks....that there was a work Libby, an at home Libby, a church Libby....that I was who I was supposed to be at each separate place. No one ever knew the pain I was in, the struggles I went through each and every day, because I NEVER let it show. Not to my best friends, my mother, my children, my pastors, no one knew how much my heart hurt. I became very good at hiding it behind a mask. Everyone thought I had it all together. I was dying on the inside, and no one knew because I wouldn't let them see. That is exactly why I refuse to be that kind of friend to other people now. I want people to see that I am 100% real, definitely not perfect, and that I am approachable, and they can come to me with anything, no judgement, just a heart wanting to help in any way I can.
I believe without a shadow of a doubt that I went through all that I went through for a reason. I have to believe that, otherwise I can't handle the pain of the past. A missing manipulative waste of skin for a father, a destructive first half of my life longing for the attention of any man that would look my way that I regret horribly, an abusive demeaning 12 year marriage to a monster that I still worry every day that it broke my girls hearts so much that it can't be mended and haunts them still to this day, thinking still that I waited too long to get us out of that situation, that if I had just been braver we wouldn't be so broken, that it wouldn't be so hard, a busted up pieced back together heart that aches so much at times that I can't even explain...all these things can't be for nothing. That pain can't go to waste, I won't allow it to. There has to be something more....
I go back to this...
"For I know the plans that I have for you" says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." (Jeremiah 29:11)
All of this had a greater purpose...to make me who I am today. A jar of clay, molded by the Father's hands. There are cracks in this jar, but they have been filled with His love and mercy and grace. The cracks are still there as reminders though. Reminders of where I came from. But seeing them filled, reminds me of where He has brought me to. I know without a doubt that my purpose is to be an encouragement to others. To be a real person, not someone pretending to be a perfect Christian. I know what I went through isn't the worst thing in the world, plenty of others have been through worse. But for me, it was the biggest, saddest, scariest thing I have ever experienced, and it changed me. It had to. For a while, it changed me for the worse...I was a mess. Mad, sad, depressed, angry, lonely...but now I can look back and see it was all for this moment. The moment I can stand here and say, here I am a broken, messed up, scared, crying woman who knows my great big God is by my side everyday....and He has purposed this time for me, this exact moment. He has a plan for my life. He took a bad situation and turned it into something for His glory.
Listen to me friend.....just because you made a mistake, or you made a hundred mistakes, whether they were last week, yesterday, or 5 minutes ago....it doesn't matter. God doesn't expect you to be perfect, He just asks that you try. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and try again, and again if that's what it takes. And if you don't know how.... then ask someone for help, let the people in your life IN your life. Let them see the real you. Let them know you are struggling, that you are drowning, that you need them. Let them IN!
If that's not you...if things are going well right now....then just be ready and willing to serve when someone else cries out for help.
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