Complete

I'm not the person that you think i am.

I have this picture, this "prayer card" that hangs on people's refrigerators or in their Bible's and it reminds them to pray for me; to pray for my work with Casas por Cristo. It's this photoshopped, perfect picture. And far too often, i think that this is what people know of me. They know me for one week. Maybe even one week every year. But in that week, you get the "photoshopped, best version" of me.

I fear that people walk away and think i have it all together.
HA! You have no idea.

The thing is, none of us are these perfect pictures that we portray. We aren't intended to be. But i fear, far too often, we look around at each other and think that everyone "has it together" but us.

In Matthew 22:36-40, Jesus tells us His greatest commandment... "Love the Lord you God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments."

"Love your neighbor as YOURSELF"

What stands out to me here, is that as we seek to "get our lives figured out" and become the New Year's resolution 2013 "best version of ourselves" we will never get there if we fail to love ourselves, and claim who God has created us to be. We come up with our lists to make ourselves better, yet overlook that it all begins with embracing OURSELVES: our past, our present, all the parts of us.

How can we ever love God and love others if we haven't even embraced who we are?
This is me.
This is my story.
These are my faults.
These are my struggles.
God's not done with me.

Eugene Peterson tells us, "live out your God created identity." Be complete. Be who God made you to be. You cannot give yourself to others until you have claimed all of yourself... for yourself.

"When you truly possess all that you have been and done, you are fierce with reality."

So for 2013, as we attempt to become the "best version of ourselves" may WE aim to become the best version of who God created us to be. Not settling for our faults and shortcomings, but with the strength to claim our pasts and our present as our own.

Trust Him with your story.