There you are!!!

Have you ever found yourself in a position where you have to actually hide your thoughts or feelings or beliefs or opinions because you didn't want the backlash of someone or have people judge you?

I can honestly say that for large portions of my entire life, I have lived this way.  I have said the right thing or done the right thing or hidden this or that because it was "important" for me to make a good impression or make my mom look good or be a good youth minister or leader or make it look like I had it all together.

I have found that bits and pieces of my life, my passions, my fears, my motivations, my doubts, my likes and dislikes and experiences have masked me from being the person i was created to be.  I have become like a woman with many faces....just trying to set the right one out in front of the right people in an attempt to get them to like me or at least tolerate me.  

A couple of months ago, I went to Muncie, Indiana with my family to a church to listen to Bob Goff, author of "Love Does," share his passions and stories about love and loving well. He talked about stripping ourselves from the masks we wear and just living our lives the way that God intended us to live.  He reminded me of a small scene in the movie, Hook, where a young boy from Neverland has found the older, masked Peter Pan.  Check it out:

I recognize that when I have to hide bits and pieces of my life and that I have a fear of approval or that I sometimes don't understand why God would create an enemy who would hurt His children or that I don't always close my eyes when I pray or that I like Rob Bell or that I like Twilight movies or that I don't always listen to Christian music or that I don't really know how I feel about war or the death penalty and how freakin' annoyed i get when people put their judgmental attitudes and thoughts on facebook or how angry I get that family members (on both sides) are not more actively involved in the lives of my children...and the list goes on and on and on....

I want to be able to remove expectations that people accept me just as I am...and I want to be able to live FREELY inside my own skin.  God has birthed passions inside of me and given me hope and freedom and the ability to think critically and is continuing to teach me more and more about Himself and His heart.  

In the midst of releasing expectations of others and their responses to me, I am learning to release people from MY expectations.  This is why I have hidden people on my facebook feed and deleted more than 600 friends, set boundaries in relationships, put down my cell phone, and stopped expecting people to be someone other than who they are.

I just want people to look at me and realize that they're looking at the REAL Nicki.  I don't want them to have to do what the boy did to Peter.  I want to be free. Free to be the woman God has created me to be.

2 Corinthians 3:18

¹⁸ And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord,^[a] are being transformed into the same imagefrom one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.