Playing Dress Up

Halloween, a day of fun, dressing up as your dream person, acting like someone you wish you could be.

Kids often dress up as super heroes, as a fairy princess, as a sport star - anyone better, different, than themselves.

Most of us don't need halloween for that.  We change our faces, our attitudes, our mannerisms, to match the people around us, trying to get them to like us.

Remember school?  Acting cool, acting like something different hurt when it did, acting like something didn't bother you when it did, acting like it didn't shock you, when it did.  

When someone put you down, you would act cool and laugh it off, even though inside, you were dying, trying not to cry.  When you saw them putting others down, you pretended it was cool, because you wanted to fit in. 

Gosh, looking back...horrors.

And now, we are .....older....and we still have problems just being ourselves.  

In a crowd of people, we find ourselves working on blending in. We watch what others do, and morph into the person that best fits in.  

Watch how others dress and dress like them, watch what they eat and try to eat like them.  See someone thinner and you try to be thinner.

I don't think that is what God had in mind.  He didn't want everyone to fit in and be like everyone else.

Romans 12:2  - Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Reading that this morning, i realized God doesn't want everyone to be the same, He wants us to focus on HIM and do HIS will -  the will HE gives you.  He gives us all gifts, and He needs us to use those gifts to spread the Word, and we are all to spread the Word in a different way -  because people hear the word in a different way.  

The seed was planted in me during High School.   Over the next dozen years, God was brought in and out of my life, so many people attempted to bring me to the Lord, to Jesus Christ and nothing stuck.  Then, when i was 29, someone taught me unconditional love.  The sermon by Jim Holbrook was 1 Cor. 13, about unconditional love...and suddenly, He was there.  Jesus Christ came to me and it all fell together and my life was whole.  

Over the years, God has had me say things, do things, behave according to His will, and others have been touched and felt the spirit.    If i didn't behave according to His plan,  i would miss the opportunity to be there for others, others who need to have the Lord in their life, just the way i needed Him in my life.  

I am different than everyone, all my friends are different.  We get together and act silly and do goofy things together, but in the end we are all different.   I don't judge them for their difference, i speak up when they hurt me, and i don't wear clothes i don't like.   

After I accepted Christ, it became easy to be me, because i learned HE LOVES ME...just the way i am. Because i am being who He wants me to be.  And my friends, the friends that matter, love me just the way i am.

And i love you.  Just the way you are.