Imposter

Think of all the different roles that you play in your life.   Daughter, sister, mother, friend…. the list goes on and on.  I am hardly the same person twice.  I’m a different person with my daughter then I am my husband, a different person at work then I am with my friends.  But how quickly we can lose ourselves in the constant changing of roles.  We fool ourselves into believing that we have to be someone different to different people instead of being our authentic selves that God wants us to be.

Recently I scrolled back through my Facebook page, curious as to which “person” I was showing to the rest of the world.  Now my personal feed is filled with cute pics of my kids or praises to my husband and there are lots of Bible verses and inspirational quotes.  But as I was scrolling I realized that this was really just a snapshot of who I really am. 

What was missing?  There are no pictures of me without makeup because well let’s just say no one really wants to see that.  There are very few posts about my struggles or even that I’m having a bad day.  And there are absolutely no posts about the painful things in my life.  The things that I keep neatly hidden away and swept under the rug. 

If you tried to get to know me using only my Facebook page you would instantly know what church I attend, that a have 3 silly beautiful children, I’m a military spouse and that I have amazing group of friends.  But that is very basic picture of who I am, and who God is molding me to be.  But it is not a genuine picture of who I really am.  It does not show my flaws or short comings.

When I think about all the different people that I “have” to be in just a single day it’s exhausting! Every day I fight against the temptation to live behind a carefully created image of who I think others want me to be. But I am discovering that this kind of imposter living is stealing my authenticity, it’s exhausting the living daylights out of me and it is stealing my joy.

In the book “My Name is Victorious” by Lori Wilhite she makes the statement, “Living a double life is exhausting. Let’s be real for a second – it can be exhausting to live the one life we have! It is hard work to be yourself. It is double the work to invent a life and attempt to live that one as well.”

There are no truer words. God made you wonderfully! It’s time to get rid of the selfie filters, the fake smiles, the phony everything is perfect in our lives personas and be the imperfect, uniquely gifted, passionate, authentic people God is calling us to be. It’s time to drop the imposter, take off the mask and be real.

In Psalms 139:14 David writes in a love letter to God “Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous!”  God created YOU for a purpose.  God has gifted you with gifts only you have.  He has placed you exactly where he needs you to be, and there is no other person that he wants for that role other than you. That includes the messy person you bring to the table. The flaws and imperfections that you carefully try to hide away.  Let God use your imperfections for his perfect plan.

So here we go! It’s time to rip off the masks, stop lying to the world and be exactly who God has made us to be.  Say it with me “I am a big, beautiful mess, but I am Authentic and an imposter no more!”

Prayer:

Father, help me to see the beauty in who you have designed me to be.  Help me to take off the mask of who I am pretending to be and to embrace the me that you are molding me to be.  I know that I am far from perfect and that there are too many flaws to name, but God I trust that you are molding me and shaping me into the person that you want me to be.  Father use me where you need me, and give me the courage to be myself in spite my flaws and imperfections.  Father I would further ask that you would use my flaws and imperfections for your glory and that you would use them as a testimony to your grace, forgiveness and glory.

If you would like to check out the book "My Name is Victorious" by Lori Wilhite please click on the picture below:

My Name is Victorious

My Name is Victorious (Teen Edition)