I've mentioned several times (here and here) that I love, love, love the blog and writing of the precious and talented writer Lisa Whittle.
Yesterday afternoon my sweet friends Betty and Sue and I traveled to Houston to Champion Forest Baptist Church for a ladies night out where Lisa was the speaker. We had a fabulous time of eating, laughing, and the absolute blessing of hearing Lisa speak.
She was as wonderful as I had imagined and it was such a joy to get to hear her in person and to put a voice to her words!
She spoke a message based on her book Behind Those Eyes (which is fabulous and absolutely needs to go on your must reads list- go buy it here NOW!) and on Psalms 51:6 that says:
God's message through Lisa was something I truly needed to hear. It was a message about how we, as women, so often pretend to be someone who we are not. How we try to cover up our imperfections and weaknesses with all sorts of things like beautifully decorated houses and immaculately groomed clothes and impersonate the women we want to be rather than the women we really are. She spoke about why we pretend to be someone we are not- which often is because we decide the truth isn't good enough to tell some people because we fear that we won't measure up in their eyes. How often do I do that? WAY more often than I would like to admit.
She shared how we need to learn to clean out our hearts- including the corners of our hearts that we try to keep secret from God and everyone else and to be the women He created us to be. It was such a much needed reminder to me that God wants me to be real and that pretending was never in His plan for my life- no matter how comfortable I've become doing it. It was a reminder to me that God can and will use me in amazing ways- only when I come clean with myself, with others, and most importantly with Him.
This is the prayer Lisa writes at the end of Chapter 1 in Behind Those Eyes which I am praying (for you and for me) this morning:
Help us to see that pretending was not in Your original plan for our lives.
Convince us by your Holy Spirit that authenticity and
genuineness are important enough to come out of hiding .
Clean out the corners of our hearts that we
try to keep secret from You and everyone else.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
And in the spirit of getting real, I've decided that I'm going to start occasionally sharing pictures and stories to show you that things aren't always what they seem in my life. So later this week, be ready for some realness. Be warned, it may not be pretty! (And would you please hold me accountable? If you don't see posts about being real......ask me about it, okay?)
PS If you left a comment on this post, I am so sorry it's gone. For some crazy reason the print got VERY tiny and I had to repost this and it lost the comments.
