Authentic

I really like Shawn McDonald's music. It's raw and real and beautiful. Pretty much anything that combines honest lyrics, well-played acoustic guitar and real strings is amazing to my ears.
Well...that or a band like Judgement Day who combines 3 of my favorite things: metal, strings, and epic music. :)

This weekend I'm leading an 8th grade ski trip (oooooh snap). We're talking to them about identity and who they appear to be versus who God created them to be. We all wear masks, some positive and most negative. Anywho, Scott and I have to be able to get up and talk about some of the masks we wear. Nothing better than spilling all of your insecurities and weaknesses out on the floor in front of 28 kids who barely know...

I realized tonight that I have grown so used to one of my masks that it fades into my own likeness. It's name is "shallow." I wear it a lot, around everyone, close friends and new people. It smiles and laughs at all times. It makes jokes and avoids deep conversation topics, because that would require it to come off. Now my own personality smiles, laughs, and makes jokes, but I love deep conversation and sharing with those I trust. So what's with shallow?

I was talking to a friend about life and relationships. We both feel like we don't fit any of the molds out there and agreed that it must mean that God has something really wonderful laid out for us. It's the following without getting distracted that can be difficult. But we talked about relationships, and immediately my shallow mask jumped on...but this time I noticed it. Why is it that the topics we need to talk about are the ones that make us put up our guard the fastest?

I think we make the mistake of carrying our past relationship blunders around with us. It's almost as if we have a separate resume of relationships and what happened and what went wrong and why it still haunts us. We're walking around with this list of flaws our previous loves have pointed out to us, and for whatever reason this keeps us from feeling worthy of anyone ever again. I know I felt like that for a very long time. After my last relationship blew up in my face, I walked around for almost a year feeling like damaged goods. You've seen those cans on the grocery store shelves...the ones with dents or discolored labels...who wants to buy a dented can of soup? Who wants to fall in love with a girl carrying so many wounds and insecurities?

The beautiful thing about this is that God loves us as we are and He knows how much more lovely we will be when we follow His will. He has not called the perfect and squeaky clean, but the lost sheep and sinners. He pours out His love on us without hesitation - the written code and all of our shortcomings are cancelled. He loves us as we are. That really gives me hope.


"When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross."
-Colossians 2:13-14 NIV

Those two verses changed my life about a year and a half ago. I am changed; I am free from my sins in the past. I am a new creation in Christ. I need to learn to recognize my masks and keep the negative ones, like shallow, far from my face.
I've adopted the attitude that if you're going to be anything, be authentic. Not shallow; Authentic.