Paint Her Pretty

**I was reminded of this blog this week by a co-worker and have taken some time to look back and remember where I was in my head in and in my heart 2+ years ago and I found this unpublished draft written on 10/19/09 -- exactly 4 years ago -- and thought the coincidence alone made it worth publishing! More, what I know now that I wasn't sure of 4 years ago, is that brokenness is beautiful.**
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My life, for the past several years, has been a constant striving.  A struggle to be more of this and less of that. A battle against feeling that I am both not enough and too much.


I vividly remember the moment I was told a few years ago by someone who, in the grand scheme of things proves insignificant, that I wasn't easy to love.  Or, that's what I heard, which is as real to me as the actual words that were spoken. 


It was in a Sears parking lot, I was standing against my car a foot away from a person I admired, respected and wanted to be just like. Her words were simple and quick, her face expressionless. And i remember the way that moment sucked the life out of me, the way I assumed at first that she was joking, until silence settled the truth, my hands covering the pain I couldn't hide on my face. It was quick, with lasting impact. And I drove the five minutes home, blinded by my tears.


The stinging power of those words (or the perception that overshadowed them) forced me, the truest me, to retreat. I began painting a picture of myself that I thought less complicated, more acceptable. 


 One day last week, I was made aware that I am seen; that this picture I've created of myself, though I was unaware, is transparent. 


While that moment was startling, it granted a freedom: To just be. 


What this means in this delicate season of my life, is that the "letting go" that I wrote of before, and struggled to define, is that simple. Just be, knowing that I am at times both, not enough and too much. 

I'm choosing to trust though, that the same beauty and honesty that I see in brokenness, will be seen in me.