Enthusiastically and Elegantly Eccentric.

Have you ever noticed how you can't escape yourself? Your true-created-to-be self? You can try, hard, and its exhausting because its an internal conflict that you will never win. Even if you try distract yourself with other things, or vices, you still end up void unless you are being true to who you are created to be. The world, people, ideologies, religion, the devil, and a whole host of other things will try add to you, or take away from you, or break you down, but deep inside the true you always remains, screaming out for life, pushing itself back up to the surface at the slightest glimpse of light. His light and His love.

This is a lot of where I am at right now. I am not going to be sugar coating my blogs, its real life, real me, as it is in the moment. I feel like I got chewed up and spat out and lie broken on the ground, but yet a dream skips through my mind at night, or a friends words stir up vision, or a song or movie reminds me of something, and little by little that true self reminds me that its still there. We have all experienced these moments.

As healing continues in my life, more and more of me is surfacing, and its a scary and vulnerable time, because that me was so crushed and broken down and rejected, that having it surface is like a fragile first bloom in spring. A bit like the rose in Beauty and the Beast, I want to encase it in glass and prevent it from dying or being damaged. But regardless, its there.

Some of it has never left me, even though I wasn't aware of it. Apparently my creativity is apparent to all. As a teen I was strongly reprimanded for being “attention-seeking” in the way I dressed. I am sure there was a measure of truth in it, because, after all, I was a broken teen. But from that day I vowed I would conform in this area of dress. Fade into the background like everyone else. Apparently I failed dismally at this. I didn't realize it, and I am sure some of you who know me are shaking their heads wondering how I didn't notice I wasn't like everyone else, but it was so normal to me.

Then the comments start to surface, someone telling me that even the way I dress is artistic. A stranger stopping me in the shop and asking if I was an artist because of the tights I was wearing. A long standing friend pointing out that I don't fit the mold, in fashion. Another long standing friend saying that “eccentric” is the understatement of the year in describing me. Slowly but surely I realized that no matter how normal I try to dress, apparently I am incapable. Not that I cant carry it off, and I say this with humility. But there will always be a touch of eccentric that will rise up. Even my current boss, said the reason she hired me was because she likes eccentric people. My tamest outfit, dressed to impress and get the job, still somehow couldn't hide my true self, so I now enthusiastically embrace my eccentricity, and manage to still do it with a touch of elegant flare.

Another part of who I am that I can never deny is that I am HIS! Almost 2 decades ago I placed a memorial on my body, ie I got a tattoo with the scripture reference to Song of Songs where it says, “i belong to my love and His desire is for me.” its an immovable truth in my life. At the moment I am completely disillusioned with the institution of church, more than I have ever been before. I am broken from church, and its difficult for me because a huge portion of my life, in fact 2/3 of my life so far has been sacrificed into and invested into church, and most of what I got out of it was a bruised heart and broken soul. But that is a story for another day. But here I am, not at all happy or hopeful about anything to do with the institution of church, barely wanting to grace its premises with my presence. Tired of the religion and striving and hypocrisy. . . and yet if I do go, and I am standing in worship with the worst attitude imaginable, the minute the songs shift from ourselves and our works to WHO HE IS, I cant help myself, worship pours forth. Regardless of the state of the Bride, I am His, and I will always be His and when I focus on Who He Is, no matter what state I am in, I cant help myself, I cant hold it in, something in me, the essence of me rises up because I am created to worship Him and to know Who He is.

Thankfully Who He is doesn't change either. Thank God. No matter what is going on, He cant deny who He is. He is the same yesterday today and forever. He is not a man that He should lie nor change His mind. He cant not act in line with who He is. Its impossible. Thank God He is eternally Who He is.

I might be able to start to embrace and celebrate my eccentricities, whilst the rest of the me is vulnerably guarded. But little by little I know He restores what He created me to be, in me. Because even though I might not be faithful, He will remain faithful because he can not deny himself.