“I want to be like you when I grow up,” read the text. Sent to me yesterday by another grown up.

Slow your roll, sister girl.

I am a mess and a half, with lots of reasons on the daily to bend Jesus’ ear all about it (just ask the people who live with me).

But aren’t we all a bit of a mess? I sure think so. And I also happen to think this is part of God’s divine design. This alone gives us chances every single day to be 1 John 4:19 for those with whom we interact. Indeed, we love because He first loved us.  

Back to that compliment I so did not deserve in the text yesterday.

“You are always positive.”

Negative, Ghost Rider.
Join me in the car for pretty much any jaunt down 287 in rush hour and you’ll shed any notion you have of me and chronic positivity.

“It gets me through life,” I replied to her, adding “That, and a whole lotta Jesus.”

If I seem like I have it together, that’s only because I think I’m just getting better at recognizing and redirecting the Enemy’s clever hand when it’s at work.

And while not in those exact words, I told her as much.

And you know, what started out as a very casual text conversation then took an unexpected turn; I can clearly see God’s hand in it.

As I very often have need for myself, she needed a safe space to vent. I was able to provide that, through goofy memes (one of my unofficial love languages, to be sure), and a level of honesty that normally I don’t include in text because people can screenshot things and misrepresent you.

But I trust her.
And largely as a gift from surviving cancer, I have gotten much more comfortable over the last several years with sharing my whole truth, not just the polished parts.

So I wrote candidly, and I think and hope that through that, she felt understood.

None of it would have happened if I’d blown off her initial message, or if I hadn’t taken the time to dig behind her need to vent.

Hope you too can find ways to own your mess and to be the good for the people He puts in your path.

I firmly believe that’s why we’re here anyway :).

Love,

Rebecca