about me

"You can't really love others until you accept and love the person God made you to be."   These words hit me square in the face as I sat in a singles Sunday School class when I was 24 years old.  I had wonderful, loving and supportive Christian parents who had provided me with strong Biblical teaching and everything else I had needed all my life and I had a great protective brother, as well.  What I realized as I sat there contemplating what I'd just heard is that I really didn't know who I was.  Over the next few days I spent a lot of time examining why this was and what I needed to do about it.  

What I concluded is that I had, from a very young age, compared myself to my brother who was 17 months older, had a very outgoing personality that drew people to him, was very confident, and made straight A's.  I would look at him and I would decide I couldn't measure up to that standard, so I simply tried to be the person I thought people thought I should be.  Understand that this was not at all my brother's fault.  It was me dealing the only way I knew how with what I thought were deficiencies.

So when I heard the words above, God awakened my heart to what I had completely failed to see...that He had created me just as I was, that He had a plan and purpose for me and that I simply needed to accept myself as God made me to be and BE who He wanted me to be, fulfilling His purpose for me!  This was the beginning of a new life for me.  I decided that the only one I needed to please was God and that I would pour myself into my relationship with Him.  Although I'd been a Christian since I was about seven years old, I had not experienced the depth of my relationship with Him that I should have.  

I'm not perfect, but I know without a doubt that I am loved by the God of the universe and that the most important thing in life is to walk with Him and experience His love, grace and mercy, then extend these to others.  I want to be the planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor as described in Isaiah 61:3.