Otherwise titled:
30 Days to 40.
Otherwise titled:
“Who other’s say I am, is not who I am. Who I think I am is not entirely who I am.”
Keep reading to join this 30-day journey (re-set) with me . . .
I’m 30 days away from turning 40. It’s a pivotal age. A sometimes dreaded number. Over the hill. Four scores and so forth. I don’t have too many feelings about this age; I have more feelings about the number–Four-OOOO. When my mom turned 40, I was eighteen and planned her party. I never felt she was old, I still don’t. I only feel a 1995 déjà vu. How can I be here, already? How can I be back there? I assume to write the numbers “Four-OOOO” will feel odd (paper making it permanent). Foreign. Phony. A bit like a lie. A lie that I’ve told and am trying to believe. Like saying you are 18 when you are 16, only reversed.
I’ll save telling you all about my thirties (let’s wait until I’m 40), except to say that, for me, they have been hard years–and that is polishing it up for a post. I’ve been moving forward, slowly, in a slew of change, while looking back. I know we are to keep our eyes ahead, but sometimes looking back is the way forward (especially for those of us that have things we don’t want to, or refuse to, face).
Me, I like looking back. I do. My friends would tell you this. It’s what makes me a storyteller, I tell you. But in staring back at what’s behind I realized I was blinded by the glitter that I sprinkled every time I sealed up a year, a hardship, my life. But walking blinded with your head turned back will only bring you to a stop. At my standstill, with prayer and help from those that lived in my stories, I looked past the shimmer shade exteriors and straight into my little girl eyes. And she shook me. She shook me awake to the truth that at 37 I was still not walking in my true identity.
I was sure of who I had been raised to be. I was sure of who other’s labeled me to be. I sure of who God expected me to be. I thought I was sure of my identity.
I had known, studied even, these truths for a good twenty years, yet I didn’t fully accept the gift.
How do you become the true you?
You become acquainted, aware, and AWAKE to your true identity–in Christ.
You accept who God says you are.
Looking into my own hazel-brown eyes, I uncovered that I never fully surrendered what I thought about myself or what others had said about me or who I was expected to be. I’d open the gift and then let it sit on my shelf like a glass statue passed down from a grandparent. I’d admire it, always, almost to the point of jealousy, when it was worn, gracefully, like jewelry, by others all around me. The effortless beauty eluded me.
But the truth is . . .
While receiving this identity is effortless, the acceptance is anything but.
At 39 and 335 days, I’ve got the gift in hand, the necklace clasped around my neck, and it hovers just over my heart.
I am 30 days to 40 and I’ve never been more awake to becoming who I already am and to urging anyone and everyone around me to open the gift they have already been given: the gift of true identity–in Christ. It is only from this place that we will ever be comfortable in our own skin.
Wakey wakey, Lovely One. Wipe the sleep from your eyes, rip up the wrapping, and see the beauty not beyond you, but within you! Wear it–wear it, with me.
For the next 30 days, I’ll be holding up a mirror to who you truly are–Who I truly am. I’ll be sending out a truth each day–a description of your identity, a confession for your soul. Perhaps, it will be your first acquaintance? Perhaps, you will accept what you already know? Maybe, it will be the first real look into your own eyes!
As you read each day’s truth, it could invoke a first-time revelation or a quiet surrender of what you’ve always believed to be true about yourself. Let’s trade truth for lies, one by one, line by line. Rip the wrapping paper apart and awaken to who we already are. Who the Father has called us from the beginning of time. It’s not something you can strive for, try to become, or work your way towards. You cannot try to un-become anything. You can only accept this identity as a gift and clothe yourself in its beauty.
My hope is that each day you read, reflect, and receive the great gift of identity—who you truly are. Read these words, speak them out loud, meditate on them, believe them–they are the benefits of salvation and a great price was paid for this gift.
Truly, this is something I decided to do for myself. I’m at a re-set. Yes, with turning forty but also with a few things turning upside down in my life. I want to walk into this next season, which feels unsure and scary, confident in who I am, and whose I am. While you may not be turning 4o, you may be at a place, too, where things are upside down. Perhaps you are standing at an ending or beginning? You are not alone. Let’s do this together!
Here’s how to FOLLOW ALONG and JOIN ME:
I’ll be sharing these 30 truths, for the next 30 days, on Instagram (click here to find me on Instagram). Then, be sure to check my Instagram stories every morning for a new identity truth. At the end of the 30 days, I’ll be e-mailing a print of all 30 truths for you to print out and keep. Just enter your e-mail address in the “subscribe” box on the right side of my blog (to receive 30 truths to your true identity).
Ok, Lovelies–meet you over on insta for today’s first truth!