Who the HECK are YOU?

The 5th grade was a big year for me. I was 11 years old and finally in my last year of elementary school! To say I had entered my awkward stage would be an understatement.  I  was tall enough to be wearing my mother’s clothes and shoes, I wore deodorant, and while the rest of the girls my age were carrying barbie backpacks, I was carrying one of my mom's old purses stashed with maxi pads.  Let's face it-there is no real way to be descrete about that-espeically when you are still in elementary school.

So began a long journey of insecurity. All girls go through it-not all in the same ways, but there is a light switch that goes off in all of our minds that tells us “different is ugly” so we need to do whatever we can to hide who we really are to be whatever it is everyone else is…

I spent all of my teenage years desperately modeling the older and popular girls, making sure I did exactly what they did to fit in, to be normal, to be pretty! I got very good at being what everyone wanted me to be and by senior year of high school-I was the master.

I had made it! I was popular!

I had met every goal I had set for myself as an awkward 11 year old girl carrying her mom’s purse to recess. I was a cheerleader. I dated an athlete. I went to all the dances-with dates. I even made the homecoming court.

The world was as it should be!

By college, I found myself 4 hours away from home and that absolutely nothing I had worked all those years for , mattered to anyone at Anderson University.

I spent a lot of years making my identity what everyone expected me to be and in return had no idea who I really was!

I got married at 21 years old and spent the rest of my 20’s pregnant and sleep deprived. My identity was being at home with my babies. While I found that very fulfilling, I never lost that hole in my heart that I didn’t know who I was or what I was here for....

 Why do we spend so much time thinking about the
“if only’s” in our life?


 “If only I had taken that job…. If only I had went to college…If only I were married…If only I had children….If only I were single.…If only I had this car paid off…If only I was thinner…..if only I could stay focused…if only I had my masters.... MY LIFE WOULD BE BETTER!”

Who taught us that?

I think we taught ourselves.
What if we started practicing being OK with who the heck we are!?

What if we got really comfortable with the

 “even thoughs?”

I am beautiful, I am smart, I am ME…..even though…I didn’t go to college…I didn’t get that job…my friends betrayed me…even though I don’t have my masters…even though I am single…even though it sometimes feels like I h ave 1300 children and drive a mini van.

I am me and who I am will constantly be evolving and growing and I am happy and comfortable with that!

"Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is You-er than You."
-Dr. Suess