Free To Be Me

I am already anticipating a long and winding post, but it will be good.

I am excited about life. That's not the first thing I thought I would write about after having my little incident last night. I will be honest, it was a little embarrassing to admit I had a panic attack at C&C last night. I'm not sure but there may be people from C&C reading this. I don't know. What I realize now is that I was not me last night. The scared Clinton (scared of what, I don't know) was not who I am. Somehow that made me feel better. The fact is Perfect Love casts out all fear, and I am learning to receive that Perfect Love.

The fact is I like me. The psalmist, or was it Switchfoot, asks, "This is your life. Are you who you want to be?" My answer is yes, I am, and yet I am growing daily. The person I am today is not the person I was yesterday, who is not the person I was the day before that. Is this paradoxical? Probably. However, each day, I am the person God made me, even if that is different every day.

I am learning that I am free to be me. For much of my early life I was scared to be me. I would rather wear a mask to protect the me inside, than let myself out and face rejection. My thought was, it is easier to have someone reject the mask I'm wearing, than reject the person I am behind the mask. I am learning to take off my masks. This blog is part of that process. It has been a slow process the last few years but it has been greatly accelerated the last 4 months or so. God is good.

I am free to be me. I am not 100% sure how that is going to play out, but I am excited to find out.

I am free to be me when I worship. On Tuesday I went to Declare and Surrender at the Christian school. There was a lot of dancing, raised hands, yelling, flag waving, laying on the floor, crying, running and jumping. That is not really me (except for the crying I guess) but there was freedom to worship as myself even if that meant I mostly sat there with my head bowed quietly. I mean, I could do what everyone else was doing but my heart would not be in it. That is the great thing about freedom though, I can be me when I worship, even if it is completely different than everyone else. I have a confession to make. When I am alone, and I worship, I do something I don't do anywhere else. I move. Not dance. Not raised hands. Not jumping. I don't know if there's any way to describe it but when no one is around that is my default. I was really hoping there was another Declare and Surrender coming up soon so I could worship as myself with others. I guess the next one is in January.

I am free to be me when I hang out with other people. That is also a difficult one for me but I'm working on it. I realize now that I won't necessarily connect with everyone and everyone won't necessarily connect with me but that's ok. I will connect with some, and when I do it will be genuine because I will be me. I've always struggled with being myself around people because I tend to be quiet and I tend to want to spend time alone. I always wondered if I could truly make friends when it took me forever to finally come out of my shell. An interesting thing happened on Saturday during our prayer/solitude retreat that helped answer this question. Two of the ladies there are quite outgoing and extroverted. Bubbly, some might say. I like them. When I am around them I don't feel drained, I feel energized and that is unusual for me. As we talked about some of our struggles I mentioned how I sometimes feel so isolated as an introvert and I wish I could be like everyone else. They immediately told me not to feel that way. I found out that both their husbands are extremely quiet and introverted and yet both women found strength and comfort in their husbands because their strengths complimented their wives weaknesses. They were grateful for their husbands and the strengths they possessed as introverts. It helped me see that maybe I am not totally messed up, just different, and maybe, someday, that difference will be the ying to someone else's yang. That gave me hope. I have sometimes wished I could be the outgoing, have a million friends, loud and boisterous kind of guy but now I am starting to realize that it would only create a struggle for me to try and be something different than God made me.

And during my time of Spiritual Direction Wednesday morning everything seemed to be confirmed. I am free to be me. Free to be the me God made me. That is liberating. However, just like the posts, once I learned a new truth from God, an obstacle (my little anxiety attack at C&C) appeared to challenge it. Well, it's not going to work. I will continue to attend C&C. I will continue to meet people. I will make friends. I will be the person God created me to be.

You make everything glorious and I am Yours. What does that make me?