I was trying to describe something to my husband and doing a horrible job of it. So, I wanted to try it here. When I was in my twenties and I was walking around the college campus feeling awkward and out of place, I knew that I didn’t look like the person that I felt like I could be. I was overweight, I was walking with slumped shoulders and a sense of defeat. I was trying to having good hygiene and pretty hair, but no matter what I did, I didn’t like the way I looked. I didn’t like how I dressed. I didn’t really want to be in my life. I was like a ghost just going through the motions trying to exist.
Yet, inside of my mind, I had this idea of what I could be. I had a picture of myself where I was happy with the way I looked and how I dressed. I was confident about who I was. When I was walking around, I was standing up straight and I was smiling without even thinking about it. In my everyday life, I was doing what I loved, and I was comfortable in my own life. I wanted to be there.
The other day when I looked at myself in the mirror, I realized that I was that woman that I used to picture in my mind’s eye. I wasn’t a picture-perfect replica of her, but I was as close as I could get to what I used to imagine. I don’t mind at all that I’m fifty years old because when I was twenty, I remember feeling like God was forcing me to be here. I remember thinking that I was just a waste of space and that I wasn’t every going to be able to get anything in life right. In what seems like a very short time, everything has changed. I have had heartaches and struggles, but the biggest change is that I know that whatever time God has given me is a gift and I am so thankful that I was given the time to figure out what that means. Even more so, I am so thankful I am figuring out all the time who I am and what I can be.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.
