Don’t hide who you are.
For a really long time, most of my life actually, I’ve hidden my desires and who I am. From the surface I would always talk about things I had interest in, but for the most part, I lived in a quiet community of one, feeling completely out of place in the world around me. You see, I was living life by normal standards, pursuing a college degree, I was in a long-term relationship with my now husband, and on the weekends, I engaged in social activities, sometimes questionable ones. Everything seemed normal, but it was far from normal. I found myself always easily offended or hurt by something someone did or said and I found myself caring so much about the way people thought of me that my life was consumed. My FOMO, or fear of missing out was practically a character trait and I was constantly consumed with being so good and so likeable that I lost who I was, or rather, I never actually knew who I was.
Finally, with an immense sigh of relief I got to my mid-thirties, and something started to shift or awaken in me. I attribute a major part of this shift to my growing faith in Jesus Christ, which hit me hard when I was pregnant with my first son in 2017. The total shift wouldn’t come until 2021 but the feelings of being judged, disliked, or talked about began to dissipate. God began to open my eyes to importance, and he began leading me to simplicity and contentment like I never thought was possible. It was his hand, and my husband’s full support that propelled me like a roman candle out of my career as a school nurse and into being a homemaker, stay at home mother, and homesteader.
The transition actually gave me whiplash, if I’m being honest. My views and my life changed so drastically when I accepted, actually truly accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior, that I’m sure people are still confused as to what happened to me. It is true that I began to change fully, and I’m still changing every day. I became someone else, someone better, someone that wasn’t afraid to be authentic. It was hard, and to this day, it is still hard. I’ve had a close relative mock my faith to my face, and have had other family members question my faith, especially in a moment of frustration, weakness, or pain, almost like a “but are you really changed?” type of jab.
The difference in how I cope now? I don’t care about those things as much anymore, of course they still impact me in some ways but nowhere near how they did years ago. If people want to spend their days bringing me up in conversation to other people, silently following in the background, and snickering about me in private, by all means they can! If that is the value they place on their precious time Earthside, that is their prerogative, and I truly pray that one day they value themselves as much as I now value myself.
Once I found myself home with my children, a calling I felt so strong was from God, I began thinking immediately how to cut costs after losing my income. My past desires to garden, can, preserve, homeschool, and all the in-betweens rose up like a force to be reckoned with and I began to finally embrace and live the life that God had designed for me, even before he breathed me into existence. I found myself desiring and dreaming on things that I thought my husband would never get on board with, from chickens to land. But every day, I turn around and not only do we as a family progress in our faith, but we walk towards dreams, which believe it or not, are becoming my husband’s dreams too.
I’ll never forget my husband telling my oldest son, that we weren’t getting chickens. Now this same man is ready to move our entire family halfway across the United States at the dream of land, in a state he’s always dreamed of living. If you would have asked me five years ago if my life would be as it is now, I would have told you, no way… lovely thought, but no way! Jesus gave me the confidence to close my ears to judgement and open my heart to endless possibilities. I am not saying I no longer ever let people and their opinions cause me pain, because that would be a lie, we’re all human. I am saying, however, that I know now, that its ok to have a moment but to never let those moments turn into hours, days, months, or years of self-doubt and sabotage.
When God tells you to move, move. When God is telling you to do something, you have to just do it regardless of what everyone around you is saying. It’s great to get counsel and listen to people’s perspectives, but when you know what’s right for you and your family you need to go for it. You cannot let the opinions of other people influence you and change your trajectory. Do not pull away from what you’ve been called to do, even if it changes, grows, or morphs into something else, something different. The foundation is being poured today, start building, and be who you are meant to be!