Perhaps it simply wasn't yet the time for me to share? Likely part of the answer, but I've also bounced between complacency and questioning God when he was putting things on my heart to share. I was choosing to be ORDINARY.
Ordinary at first doesn't sound so bad. In fact as I've talked with God about various stories from my journey, I've used that as my excuse - "there's nothing special there," I would say, "I'm just ordinary." I thought it really made sense so didn't engage much more in the conversation. When I would listen a bit to His response, I was challenged by questions like "Do you really think that no one else has a path similar to yours?" or "Do you not relate to the stories of other people's journeys?" and so forth. Still, I was comfortable with believing I was ordinary and to be honest a bit fearful of how what "sharing ordinary" would look like or require.
I was comfortable at least until last fall when one of my pastors, Andi Andrew, announced the start of the She Is Free movement. She challenged the women of our church to search and find the things that were keeping us from truly experiencing freedom. The night she asked us to write down what we needed freedom from, I couldn't come up with much more than surface topics/situations that were consuming my thoughts, but I knew there had to be something deeper and I wanted to find it. I couldn't explain it, but I knew this movement was something I was called to invest in and that started with investing in myself. This was a start of a journey to freedom, a freedom which would ultimately empower me step out in obedience to the things God has been and is placing on my heart.
As I've thought about starting to document this journey, I've struggled with describing what was at the core of what was holding me back... What was my key phrase? How should I fill in the following blank:
"I'm thankful for Freedom from _____________________."
In the last few weeks I've really been thinking about being ordinary and questioning if it was a truth or a lie. One of the books I've been reading off and on for some time now is John Bevere's, Extraordinary, where he discusses that as people in relationship with God we're empowered to be extraordinary. As I read the concept resonates with me, stirs that fire in the pit of my stomach and quite frankly just makes sense. So how can I be "ordinary" if God calls me to be extraordinary? As I continued to wrestle with these thoughts, I thought it would be good to see how dictionary.com defines ordinary, as I skimmed the page the following definitions jumped off the page:
"1. of no special quality or interest; commonplace; unexceptional: One novel is brilliant, the other is decidedly ordinary; an ordinary person. 2. plain or undistinguished: ordinary clothes. 3. somewhat inferior or below average; mediocre. 4. customary; usual; normal: We plan to do the ordinary things this weekend."I was disgusted with myself for ever declaring myself ordinary and even more so for telling God I was ordinary when He was telling me He has greater purposes for me. As I read these definitions today, I can wholeheartedly say - that's not me at all. Even when I was using my "ordinariness" as an excuse for complacency, I would have told you I was a leader, a good friend, a follower of Jesus, smart, and many more things which do not agree with the definitions above. However, somewhere along the way, I had decided that as a whole I was "customary or usual" and had allowed myself to believe that was OK. In recent months, God has reminded me of the many times when people in the Bible didn't see the potential in themselves that He saw in them (Moses, Esther, Nehemiah, and David to name a few) and how He will use us in spite of ourselves - that is if we agree to make ourselves available to Him. As I've stepped out of complacency and really paid attention to what God is saying, what he's convicting me of withholding, where He's leading me next; I've faced many lies I was believing about myself and allowed the truths I knew in my head to penetrate to the deepest crevices of my heart. So, yes more stories from my journey will come as I'm able to articulate and prompted to share, but today I conclude with my personal declaration of freedom:
"I'm thankful for Freedom from being ordinary."
"Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect." Romans 12:2 (NLT)
1 comment:
Great Post! I for one, do not think you are ordinary. I have never considered myself ordinary at all, but that comes from the knowledge that my background and home-life were never ordinary. I learned to embrace being different from the beginning. I do however, have a fear of being SEEN as ordinary. As a creator of things and an artist, I don't want to be overlooked, and I feel that as a person in real life, I tend to blend into the background. I wish I could live the dynamic life that I have in my head. lol. Thanks for the thought provoking words. I will be considering what you said about us being called to be extraordinary.
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