My sweetest and favorite moments of walking with Jesus have been when I have felt the most free. The freedom where I can be exactly who I am, uninhabited by what my adult life has taught me and I know my purpose is pure. 

God wanted to use my voice, but fear held me back

My voice is a big part of who God created me to be and for many years, I felt I couldn’t use it. I was always talkative as a child, often getting louder when I became excited. Then around the age of 8 years old, I experienced trauma and when I used my voice and spoke up, it wasn’t heard. It broke something within me to speak up. My parent’s own guilt and shame from their lives override their ability to hear my emotions, so I stopped me expressing how I felt.

Throughout my life, I have often shared ideas for them to be either ignored or not chosen. I can see that people never intentionally meant to hurt me but it taught me not to express my ideas. Insecurity started to plague me and it overflowed into everyday life, meeting new people, making conversation, and general ‘adulting’. I became less talkative and often quiet. Yet the person God created me to be naturally bubbles up with excitement, loving to share what was within. I would often feel this internal conflict between the fire in my belly to share and the lie that they won’t want to hear it. Most times, I let the lie take ground and would stay silent. But God revealed and affirmed that my voice matters and needs to be expressed, changing everything. 

God calls out who we truly are

Jesus tells the Pharisees that He is the gate and anyone who enters through will be saved. He also says that the “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:10). I have come to see that the enemy goes after the strengths or giftings that God has given us, trying to distort it into the opposite.

By drawing attention to the opposite, we would forget our identity and lose sight of the power God has given us to impact lives and glorify Him. We can start to believe the lie that there is no strength or gifting there. I have seen this in the lives of people around me. A friend of mine struggled with anger growing up, yet now she is a peace bringer to people. Another friend, never considered herself to be soft or kind because she was a ‘tough chick’ in her teenage years. But over time she came to realise that was a façade and a way to protect her true soft nature. 

God designed each of us uniquely

God designed us to be uniquely us and we impact the world best when we are our true self. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Gal 5:1). Freedom comes when we know our identity in Christ and recognize the way He created us to be. No chains, no distortions, no lies, only truth of our identity.

Our role is to first recognize the struggles we have in our lives and identify if it’s a God given strength or gifting being attacked. Once we recognize this, then we need to fight back and take ground, it’s our God given right to be exactly who He has created us to be, nothing holding us down!