I AM NOT NOTHING: PART 2

I was driving home from running some errands, and had just finished listening to a podcast or something that really hit me. In that moment I started to talk with God in my car.

I was driving home from running some errands, and had just finished listening to a podcast or something that really hit me. In that moment I started to talk with God in my car.

I know, some of you are gonna think me crazy, but I'll tell ya, my relationship with God changed monumentally the moment I stopped over analyzing how to pray and instead just started talking to Him like I would anyone else.

That night He took the form of a friend in the car I was chatting with. And while I usually just think our conversations in my head, I was so excited I was talking out loud. I told Him something along the lines of "God, I feel so amazing!! I LOVE being with you like this. I feel you so near and your presence makes me feel so relaxed and comfortable. I'm not worried, I'm so happy & well you're fun!"

I'd been intending to go on and talk about how I'm so glad I reached out to my friend (a person from college) because I wanted to share this feeling with them. But then I started to worry that it was wrong for me to like feeling this way. That it was some how selfish or self-serving for me to be excited about sharing it with others. That I was being prideful for wanting to say "yeah me!" for working hard to be in a place where I could feel this way.

But I didn't even get a chance before I felt God say to me "OF COURSE you should want to feel this way! Men. are. that. they. might. have. JOY!

This is how life is supposed to feel. This joy that is independent of circumstance or age. This is what it is to BE Me. It is good that you desire to continue to feel this way and to share it with others because you want them to feel it too. This is exactly what I WANT you to do. This is why you are to feel this way. This not pride or selfishness in you, this is Me in you."

“ This is how life is supposed to feel. This joy that is independent of circumstance or age...this is not pride or selfishness in you, this is Me in you.”

Then it was like He showed me a picture of me. I have previously felt, and thus believed, that there was this "real" version of me. This me who seemed older just because she was wiser and more capable. She seemed perfect or ideal because she always seemed to be centered right when making decisions.

Ever since I was a small girl she was there. Most of my life I only felt her periodically. Probably because there was too much other stuff I was focused on. She was somewhere in the cluttered background.

But as I got older I've sought her out more and more. I realized I want to be her. I work hard to try and be her and more and more often my efforts would pay off and I'd feel "aligned" with her. When I did, it was like magic happened. I felt like I was being 100% me. Nothing held back, unloved, or unseen. Just the real me, flaws and all, completely free and amazing. I love it and thus have continued to seek it out.

That was who He said I am with Him. It hit me in that moment: in comparison the "regular" me is truly nothing and can do nothing. Only the real me, the me with God, can do anything!