Be Light | Everybody Else's Girl

I'd spent so many years of my life trying to be everybody else's girl.

Parents. Pastors. Teachers. Friends. Enemies. Boys.

"What can I do for you?" | "How can I please you?" | "How much is enough for you to love me?"

And then, the day came when I decided I wouldn't try to be anyone else's girl anymore, because I was only going to try to be my own.

The decision felt simultaneously like freedom and fear. I was equally jubilant and terrified. I didn't want to disappoint anyone. But it was more important for me not to disappoint myself by living for other people's approval.

I quit going to church. Church had put knots in my stomach for as long as I could remember. I decided that wasn't making me feel any closer to the Source. So I let it go.

I quit friends. A lot of them. Most of them. Out of a sense of duty, I had desperately been trying to save relationships with people who left me feeling more alone than I'd felt before seeing them. So I let them go.

I quit hiding. I quit hiding my life from my parents. I quit hiding my heart from Nathan. I quit hiding my joy from my friends. I was tired of living in fear of being seen, recognized, known for something other than my perfectly constructed mask. So I let the mask go.

I let it all go, like old skin.

I knew anyone worth keeping would love me anyway.

And as for the others, they could say what they wanted about how they though I'd failed, sinned, missed the mark.

They could say what they wanted, but I wouldn't hear them.

I'd be too busy listening to my heart.