The real me...

I recently watched the movie Alice and Wonderland.  The non-cartoon one that came out in 2010.  I never thought I'd like that movie or the storyline.  It seemed kinda crazy and weird.  But for some reason when I saw that it was playing on the Disney Channel I recorded it to watch.  Something that struck me about the movie is when Alice talked to the worm, the wise one, Absolem.  The characters were trying to figure out if Alice, this grown up Alice, was indeed THE Alice, the Alice that came when she was a child.  Absolem asks her if she is Alice and she doesn't think she is THE Alice.  He chides her for not knowing who she is.  When she speaks to him again at the end of the movie, she is starting to figure out that she is the THE Alice.  She tells Absolem the things she knows about herself.  She tells him her name, who her parents are etc.  Through those basic things, she finds she is THE Alice and has the courage to do what all the characters in Wonderland want her to do, slay the Jabberwocky and free the creatures from the rule of the Red Queen. 

There are many times in life I have felt like the Alice in the beginning of the movie.  I'm not sure who I am or if I am who I want to be.  There are many times and days that I live in fear I won't live up to my potential and days I just give up thinking I never will.  I want to be what other women are, thrifty, organized, amazing moms, stylish, skinny and confident.  I look at what other women have and compare myself.  I have convinced myself that I'm not enough.  It's not just external things, but internal as well.  As a Christian woman I see other women's spiritual gifts and think I don't measure up.  I worry I am not doing enough for God or allowing Him to use me the way I was made to be used. There is a lot of worry, a lot of comparing and a lot of sorrow over something that is really not worth it all.

Wow!  That was pretty depressing! I'm laughing at myself right now, in case your worrying I'm crying or something! :)

So here's what God has been teaching me about all this!  He loves ME!  The real me!  Not the me I wish I was, or the me that had characteristics like her.  He wants to use ME!  Because He made me the way I am for a reason!  My struggles, my strengths, my bad habits and good ones!  I have been realizing lately that I need to go back to the basics, like Alice!  I need to remind myself sometimes of who I really am! I am a child of God.  I am loved by God, saved through Jesus and I can walk in freedom from my sin everyday!  When I remind myself who I am, I also see who God is.  Taking the emphasis off ME and putting it on HIM.  When I see who I am in HIM everything else really doesn't matter.  I can be content with me because I am loved by a great God.  So like Alice, I need to go back and recite the basics.  When I do that, I am able to see the real me.  Although, I'm not sure I will ever slay a Jabberwocky and help overthrow a Red Queen, but you never know!