Revelation - Getting My "Feisty" Back.

I've been stifled lately. Now, I know what you may be thinking..."but you've moved back to Ohio, where the air is crisp and clean!". No, no, not that kind of stifled. I mean I've been inhibited. Surpressing myself away for fear that people won't understand me. And now I've reached a point where I can't take it anymore. The straw that broke the camel's back? Someone very special, dear, and close to me in not-so-many words, telling me to withhold my feelings because, in the end they didn't matter because their feelings were more important...what??? Now for those of you who truly know me, I am not a meek person. I am not one to sit back and accept such total mind-screwing crap.

So, why did I accept this, not only from this person, but from other sadly misguided people as well? I was thinking being a Christian meant you hold back at all costs, even if it hurts you repeatedly. But that couldn't be further from the truth. God wants you to guard your heart, but he doesn't want you to lose your brain in the process. God made you who you are for a reason. Yes, He wants you to be more like Him, but He doesn't want you to turn to a mindless pile of mush. God intended for me to live my life the way as He created me, strong, couragious, and energetic! I was once that girl and I will will find her again.

After living in the crazy city of New York for 5 years, I moved back to Ohio last April; broken in every way. I never thought I would heal from the pain that I had experienced in the cold, concrete city. It all took on various forms, of course, but the cruelest manifestation of all was my hopes and dreams; everything I believed with every fiber of my being; dashed and scattered and the harder I tried to grasp for the pieces, the faster they fled away from me. A dear friend was gracious enough to invite me into her home and family to "reintroduce" me to my own hometown, which now seemed so foreign to me. I felt more like a fish out water than I'd ever been. I had to learn again what it was like to have a "normal" life from people all around me. I felt like people didn't understand me or would never understand what I'd been through. So, I hid it all away, including my own personality in the process, for fear that people would not be able to relate to me, or judge me or criticize; not having any understanding of what it was like themselves. Until I realized that I was hurting noone, but myself. I had been reading something a friend had said about me. This person hadn't seen me since before I moved to New York. One of her answers to a question asking her to describe me in one word was "FREE". I began to cry when I read it because I realized I wasn't that person anymore. Yes, I had a crazy life in New York, some good, some bad, some ugly, most you would think was straight out of a movie. I experienced great joys and lows and even some things I'm less than proud of. Although, I can safely and proudly say I kept my dignity through it all.

But the point is it was my life for 5 years. Those were my experiences, my struggles, my battle to survive in a city that is laughably not what they show on TV or in the movies. I can't hide those experiences as they are a crucial part to who I am as a person now.

So, I am going to be myself...fully...and ignore the pleas of those who try to make me feel that my opinions and feelings are not valid. When the honest and blunt truth is those very people have NO CLUE themselves. Can you really spend surface time with a person and say you know them well enough to blanket-label them? Not hardly! The people who know me and love me and have seen first-hand what has happened along this journey are the only people that have a right to form any kind of in depth opinion at all. My trust is in God who has covered me and continues to heal me from that lonely, broken, terrifying place. What a disservice it would be to the God who made me to be vocal, cause fighting, and charismatic woman that I am at heart to hold myself back for the fear that it will make other people feel insecure in themselves. Quite frankly, I'm getting pretty sick of it!

If we all took the time to evaluate ourselves IN CHRIST and realize who EACH OF US were made to be through Him individually, I gaurantee, we all would be a lot more comfortable with ourselves. God has made all of us to be unique in our own ways and if He wanted us all to be the same, He would have made us all the same. I don't strive to be like the next person. I strive to be that woman who in ultimate glory, is the woman that the Lord has made me to be through His Will! So, if that makes me "weird"...bring it.