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So here’s the thing. I’m kind of all over the place. Like full on. I’m the girl who falls when she is already on the ground. No joke. That really happened. (But we can talk about that later.) I get tangled up in things. Literally, I get tangled. In. Things. My laugh is loud. My voice is loud. Even my walk is loud. I get crazy lost, and my sense of direction is a total hot mess.
I am busy. Not the my-calendar-is-maxed-out kind of busy (well, that too), but I am a real busybody. I love making people laugh – which isn’t difficult when you do anything listed above. And I have more nicknames than the years I have been alive. (Another thing we can talk about later.)
All that to say, there’s a lot goin’ on over here.
Truthfully, I’ve wrestled a bit with being a “silly girl.” There are a lot of lovely, and I mean lovely, ladies out there. But sometimes, in my most vulnerable and insecure moments, I see them and think, “Well, way to go, Heather. You just spilled coffee on your high-waisted pants and maroon boots while sitting down doing nothing. And somehow you also managed to get it in your hair. Meanwhile, ‘calm, cool and collected girl’ is sitting over there doing her calm, cool and collected thing. Be more like her.”
Ever felt that way?
“Silly girl” or not, my “all over the place-ness” and her “calm, cool, collected-ness” is not what our worth in Christ is based on. Without Jesus, my personality, along with anyone else’s, is total garbage. Why? Because apart from Him, I am nothing. Literally, nothing. Apart from Him, my worth is ultimately valued off of how many people I can get a laugh out of. Gross!
But! With Jesus, my personality, as with anyone else’s, can invite freedom. It can be an open invitation for people to see God in us and through us. My friends can delight in Jesus while we laugh at the different little quirks and oddities amongst us, like collectively owning a lava lamp together. My family can delight in Jesus when they look at how very similar my also silly mom and I are, and how amazing it is that God created relationship and characteristics and DNA and so on and so on.
God does not need us. Did you know that? He totally doesn’t. We are here because He wants us to be here. We are who we are because that is who He created us to be. Bits and pieces of each and every one of us reflect the character of our Creator.
Now please don’t confuse this with saying in our sin, “Welp, I can’t help it! It’s who I am!” No. Not OK. We all have a responsibility to tame our tongue, take our thoughts captive and exercise self-control. Not to mention, we are ALL broken.
Instead, let this be an encouragement to you. Do not let the idea of other people and the unrealistic expectations of the world identify you. You see, while my spirit is full of whim and freewheeling, I am more importantly the daughter of a King. Me! The daughter of the King. So really, I don’t care if I’m the loudest sneeze ever or the quietest mouse in the room. That is not my identity; it is not your identity. Our identities are in Jesus.
The prayer I have for myself, and every woman and man out there, is that no matter who we are or what people think, we use our character and our personality to point people to Jesus. What else really matters anyway?