Just people

It was a revelation the day God showed me that people are just people and He is the One who
determines my value. That was just a little over a year ago and it still surprises me at times, especially in certain situations.

Confident about what God has shown me He wants for my life, I attended the National Hearts At Home Conference yesterday with a new perspective. I've sat in the audience of conferences like this before and thought, "How could I ever be on that stage, and tell people what God wants me to tell them? Look at me! Why would they listen to me?"

This reply to my tweet
 really made my day!

As God continues to stoke the fires of my dream of becoming an author and speaker, I went in to these conference sessions without my star-struck glasses on, and what I saw really threw me for a loop.

I watched the way these women walked and talked and dressed and spoke. It was amazing. What I saw was something that I had begun to suspect had to be true, but hadn't been able to convince myself of before.

They were all... every single one of them... normal. (They might disagree with that assessment, but to be fair, normal covers a pretty wide range for me.)

I found out one speaker and best-selling author is living in my home town and when I went to her Facebook page, saw she was already friends with MY MOTHER! What!?! How is that possible?

One admitted to all of us that she was wearing Spanx and couldn't breathe after running up the steps to the stage to speak.

Another talked about the time she was so tired with her four kids she actually asked the officer who pulled her over for speeding to arrest her.

Two talked about their healing, but not always stable marriages.

Words were mispronounced.

Miss-steps were made.

Cues were missed.

There were technical glitches.
(Granted, most were only glitches the perfectionist head of a church's A/V team would catch.)

I even saw a speaker's bra strap slip out once.

Don't misunderstand. It was an amazing day and very professionally put together! But God used those little things to remind me that I don't have to be perfect for Him to use me. I don't have to have angelic children, a spotless house, a flawlessly running business, or be in a perfect relationship.

The speakers I saw yesterday are real people... and that's all He wants from me as well.

If I want God to use me, I just have to be me.

The same goes for you. It doesn't matter how messy you think your life is or how you feel you lack in one area or another. God created YOU to be the you that you are. Be who He created you to be.

You aren't what you've done. You aren't where you've been. You aren't what's been done to you. You are a child of the King, a precious heir to His throne. You have a story. You have a purpose. You have an impact.

He wants more for you than you can even dream right now. Don't let that go because you don't think you are good enough or smart enough or pretty enough or put together enough.

I can't share this too many times. You have to know what He sees when He thinks of you! If you believed that... you'd truly believe that all things are possible through Him.

Jesus looked at them intently and said, “Humanly speaking, it is impossible. 

But with God everything is possible.”

~Matthew 19:26

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or imagine, 

according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory 

in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

~Ephesians 3:20-21