Who Are We.....Really?

If some people would have had it their way, I would not be here writing today. I can’t begin to tell you how many times that situations or people have tried to crush me to the ground. I can’t begin to tell you just how many of my dreams were shattered into a thousand pieces by the hands of others who had no compassion or love for me, but chose to hurt instead of love and chose to tear me down instead of building me up. Then there were the many poisonous words that were used as weapons to stop me from moving forward; sharp words that were meant to kill the person that was inside of me. It is amazing how much power were in the words spoken to me and around me…so much power that it crippled my hope and ambition and had me seen as the victim for a period of time. Whenever your legs of confidence and hope are broken, you basically become debilitated, unable to move, feeling that your life is useless. Once the pain of fear, worthlessness, and hurt sets in, you start to become someone that you do not recognize anymore, and you start to live a life driven by the actions and words of other people around you. The “real” you is so hurt that you begin to stuff and hide that person and is replaced with a stranger that wears the skin of expectations of other people, their meaningless words and actions, and the lies that you tell yourself to keep you from dealing with the hurt person that you have stuffed down inside.
I think about how many people are walking around with a hurt, shattered, beat down person on the inside of them. Do they even know the “real” them on the inside? How many years have gone by that while they decided to live life as a stranger apart from the “real” person they are? The one thing that I had to come to grips with is that I could no longer continue to cover the “real” me up any longer, I needed to know the “real woman” inside. I had enough of pretending to laugh when I was crying inside, I had enough of smiling when I wanted to scream, and I had enough of pleasing others while I was unhappy and displeased with myself. It became time for me to get real and understand how this charade was not working and how that I wanted the “real” me to become what others would see. I had realized that too many of my years had been wasted on pretending to be someone else. I knew somewhere down deep inside that life was not meant to be spent this way, and that I had to get to know who I really was. I had become so many different things to so many different people; I had no idea who I was on the inside. It was time to ask God to help me get to know her and for him to heal her. I knew this was a job too big for me to handle and had to become humble enough to realize that I needed his help and to help me get to get reacquainted with her.
As I got to know her, I found out that I actually really liked her and admired her uniqueness. I got to know someone who loved when it may not had been the “normal” or “in” thing to do, someone who may not have fit into the normal scheme of things as the world had led me to believe, someone who had compassion and a heart for hurting people, and someone that loved to laugh and make others laugh. I also found out just how strong and persistent she was. Inside of her were an incredible focus and faith and hope that were so strong, that the dreams that were thought to have been lost and broken would suddenly come back to life. There are so many things that I found out about her, and I am still finding out; this has been a learning adventure everyday about her.
To all of the ones who tried to drown the “real” me with their negativity, I say, “I am still here.” To the ones who tried to hurt the real me with words or negative actions, I say, “I am back and stronger than ever and you will never get the chance again to hurt the “real” me. To those who are still walking around with the broken, hurt, and scared person inside of them, I say, “It is time get to know that “real” you and allow God to help heal that person so that you can become who you really meant to be and not some cheap imitation or reflection of what you believe others want to see you perform as. It is ok to love who God made you to be; it is not ok to be chameleons for other people who may or may not even know who they are themselves. Let’s ask ourselves, “Do we really know who we are?”