All You Need Is Inside of YOU
I spend a lot of time … *Correction* …
I WASTE a lot of time trying to be things that I am not.
God must be so damn frustrated!!
Think about it. He knit me (and each of us) together in our mother’s womb. He designed us to be uniquely made. One-of-a-kind. Never to make another just like us. And what do we do?….we try our hardest to be like everyone else! WTF?!?
This little baby girl to the left is me. Aren’t I cute? HaHa. Little baby Erin.
I stuck this in a journal back in 2009 and drew the picture to the right next to it. I didn’t write anything so I don’t really know why I did this. What I do remember from that time of life is struggling and questioning a lot about myself. I was a new mom with a newborn baby and I felt like a baby myself. It was a lot.
Fast forward 13 years and I am a “seasoned” mother of 2, a widow and a business owner. I have lived in 4 states and 4 time zones. I have suffered great loss, trauma and grief. That baby girl to the left has had to endure the weight of not only her world crashing down but the weight of her children’s worlds as they grasp to find steady ground after losing their father.
I look at this picture and think “man, that poor baby is going to experience a lot of pain in her life.” AND AND AND I look at this picture and think “Wow! That little baby girl already has all the strength she needs to endure every single step along the way.”
As I look at the sketch of myself I am struck by a few things…
1) The thick black shadow that is supporting the weight of the sketch feels substantial, strong, steady. I feel like the sketch of that girl is sitting securely in a place that cannot be moved and will not let her fall. It feels like God’s hand to me and I am sitting in it. Cradled. Safe. Secure.
2) The sketch itself is just an outline, the beginning of a detailed drawing that will be filled in later. The empty white space inside those lines is where Hope and Adventure and Life lies. Inside that tiny body is a Soul that will hold so many memories and be the place that this girl looks to find Rest, Peace, God, Herself. Everything she needs is already inside of her.
3) I notice the rectangle surrounding the girl. 4 walls. Precise, straight, containing her Story. This represents our life to me. A snapshot of one life in an eternity of time.
So why am I writing all this? Honestly, I do not know.
What I do know is that I wanted to document this girl. I want to remind her that she is enough and has enough. Right now. Already. And has since day 1. AND SO DO YOU!!!
Stop spending so much time trying to be like everyone else.
Think back to yourself as a tiny new precious thing.
Imagine your innocence.
Imagine your joy as you giggled.
Imagine your cries as you wept in need of food, diaper changes, hugs.
We were all babies once. Vulnerable and real with who we were, what we liked and what we didn’t like. We were fascinated with the world as all babies are. We were who God intended us to be before the world changed us.
Let’s get back to square one.
Let’s get back to who we were created to be.
Uniquely and wonderfully made.
One-of-a-kind YOU!!!!!