Me Phony? That's Bologna!

I have been going to church for just a few weeks short of a year.  In this year I have learned a lot about myself that I thought I knew all along but was doubtful.

 When people tell you things about yourself and you don't have a spiritual relationship with God, it's easy to let those things saturate your mind and spirit and you eventually start believing those things.  Today I attended a beautiful seminar at church given by Sheri Rose Shepherd.  Before today I didn't know much about her and I even went on her website and wanted to know more.  As it turns out, it was touching, heartfelt and so personal to me it was as if she wrote her lesson to speak to me.

At the end of her lesson she gave us all a blank piece of paper and told us to write whatever it is on the paper that is holding us back from our freedom and who God intended us to be.  After we did this she made us crumple up the paper and throw it away.  She said sometimes God places mountains in our paths because he knows we are strong and will find ways to get around them...so true.  She also said that sometimes we question God of why our dreams were not given to us and never realizing that perhaps it is because he has better plans for our lives far beyond what we ever dreamed for ourselves.

There are days when I too question WHY.  I guess I never realized that maybe despite all the mountains in my path God knew that I would find ways to get around them.  Lately I feel stronger and feel more passionate than ever to cut these invisible chains  that are holding me.  It used to bother me when I would come home from church and get told that I am phony because a disagreement turned into an argument that wasn't very christianlike. 

The truth is I don't have the energy anymore to argue and be unhappy.  I am on the verge of turning 39 in just a few months and I want people to see me and know that I happy all the time.  I remember the old poem that we heard in grade school...

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me".  They used to, I won't lie.  Lately though, I have just decided I will give it all to God.  I know I am not phony for God and its hard to take those words seriously from someone who only mocks all that I do at church.

I threw that paper away today and I am finding my way around those mountains because I am a strong person in my beliefs and to my relationship with God...and that's not phony.