Mother’s Day.
Our morning started out pretty normal for us. Showers, breakfast, get ready for church, break up a fit between toddlers…argue with myself about what I “should” wear to church… This is something I struggle with on an HOURLY basis…
When I moved to East Texas from South Louisiana, I was the outcast. I “talked funny”. People couldn’t understand me. I remember being corrected on the term “hose pipe”. (Apparently, it’s a water-hose!) I could no longer wear the things I wore, talk the way I talked, or act the way I acted. I was forced into being someone who East Texas wanted me to be. The older I got, the more I realized how “fake” people could be.
I had wanted to find a church home to raise Mackenzie in for about 2 years. I had very strong Christian influences in my teen and adult life. But, I lacked that in my childhood. I wanted to make certain that Kenzie didn’t miss out on what I had. When I married, at 19, I had chosen someone who everyone around me thought was the perfect choice for “me”. And he wasn’t a bad person…he just wasn’t for ME. It took me a long 4 years of soul-searching and hurting myself to come to the realization that I needed to be true to myself. Not FOR myself, but for everyone I was involved with. My daughter, my husband, my parents, my friends…and God. I couldn’t make my husband go to church with me. I couldn’t make my friends go with me because they were busy being 20 years old… not parents and wives. So, once again, I did what most people would do, I stopped trying to do what I *knew* was right for me and started doing what was expected from me. I hung out with people who were poisonous to me. I did things that made those people proud.
Once I realized what was happening, I realized it was THE time to turn things around. I got a divorce. I cut ties with people who didn’t belong in my life and I moved on.
The next 4 months of my life are a blur. I fought with people. Including my Mom. I hurt people. Including myself. And my best friend… Thank God for mercy…
When I married Mike things calmed down, for a little while. He understood me. He was searching for the same thing I was and wasn’t finding it where he was looking. Such has been the past 6 years. Still unable to wear what we want, do what we want, or say what we want due to the way people react when someone is their TRUE self. When we say “we just don’t belong here”, it’s not because we are bitter towards anything. We just really DON’T belong here. Our way of thinking isn’t accepted. Our way of life is “different”. You may read this and think I am crazy because you don’t get to see the ways in which we are different than you. But, I assure you, we are…
The world we live in is full of ridicule. If you do not follow the mold that the enemy sets in front of you, YOU are the outcast. So, in turn, we are all square pegs in a round hole.
This was (for the most part) the message Bri’ preached this morning. Needless to say, it struck me right where it counts!!! As a child of God and a Mother to children of God, it is my job to be who God made ME to be. It’s not fair to cover up who I am and what I am. It is my duty to pass my uniqueness down to my children and to teach them that being themselves is EXACTLY what God intended them to be.
Happy Mother’s Day!
Me and Toryn May 10, 2014
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