On our way to church, I sat staring out the car window with my lip threatening to poke. It wasn’t poking but it sure was threatening to. We had planned to attend Sunday School for the first time, but that ship for this particular Sunday had sailed. Then a slight case of misinterpretations and miscommunication surrounding a certain hair mishap almost made us miss church altogether. Needless to say, we were running late, and that gave me one more reason for my already determined pout.
We’ve been looking for a church to call home for as long as we’ve been married, which is exactly 16 months now. My desire for a diverse congregation led us to this church. I joined the weekly women’s bible study and we attend pretty regularly on Sundays. Yet I still feel like something is missing. On this particular Sunday morning my discontentment seemed unbearable.
When my husband asked me what was wrong, I offered a muddled response about my fellow church goers that probably sounded something like:
“They aren’t this. They do that. They don’t do this. They act like that. Why don’t they act like this?”
The number of “they’s” in my conversation was adding rapidly. At the end of my rant, my ever so wise husband politely tossed the “they” ball back into my court. He told me all he heard was me talking about how someone else is acting (or how I perceive them to be acting) and reminded me that I can’t control the actions – good or bad – of other people. He admonished me (once again) to just do what I’m going to do, don’t do what I’m not going to do, act the way I act, don’t’ act the way I’m not going to act.
“Just be you,” he chided.
For some reason or other I often find myself at the other end those words. Just be you. I host a blog entitled Be Completely You, so you’d think I would have mastered this concept by now, right? Not quite. On some occasions, in some environments, around some people – in my past and in my present – I have been the center of a major tug of war with my most authentic self tugging the other end of the rope.
At the close of my last post I asked why is it we girls fear authenticity so much. Why are we often uncomfortable being ourselves? What are we really afraid of? I think it varies from one woman to the next, but the common denominator is most definitely found in the word fear. Next week I’ll share a few of my own fears when it comes to authenticity. I hope you’ll join me. Maybe you’ll find you can relate to one or two of them yourself.
Until then, keep thinking about authenticity and make it your goal today and every day. If you notice, I even used the same picture with this post as a reminder to be 100%, all the way, completely you.