taking off the mask.

My spiritual dad, Sam, authors a blog called The Seed of Hope. This past Tuesday, his post really resonated in my heart with what God has been teaching me as of late. The post was called "Fatherly Advice." It was God's fatherly advice to him.

He talked about how the Lord told him that he was perfect. Not that he was literally flawless, but that the way God created him and the way God sees him is PERFECT. This is what he says God spoke to him:

  

"When you were born, Sam, you were PERFECT. You came into this world exactly the way that I wanted you to be, because I don’t make mistakes. You looked exactly the way that I wanted you to look, and you had the heart and mind that I wanted you to have. You were perfect in every way.

And then the world and the enemy polluted your mind and robbed you of the perfectness that I created in you. You were still perfect in My eyes, but you lost sight of it in yours. You forgot. It’s time to remember who you are, how you were made, and to begin walking out the plans that I have for you" (www.theseedofhope.com)

How powerful. "Its time to remember who you are, how you were made, and to begin walking out the plans I have for you."

A few months ago, my roommate, Brooke, told me, "You haven't changed, Kasey, you've simply become who you really were all along." Who I really was all along was just buried under a lifetime of fear, doubts, guilt, shame, mistakes, and believing lies. I have become and am becoming the person that God originally had in mind when He created me.

I have come to the realization that I wear masks and keep walls around my heart and life so I won't get hurt.

Nobody, and I mean NOBODY, with the exception of my sister and her boyfriend, has seen my real personality. If you ask most people, they would say that I am quiet, reserved, shy and timid. Ha! That is not me at all. Its just the person I have been projecting out my whole life.

I started my hiding at 5 years old. I was an awesome 5 year old kid. Loud, crazy, and fun. Then I started school. And I stopped talking. My teacher thought I had some kind of speech impediment cause I never spoke. So began my hiding. My trying to please people and be what they wanted me to be.

I was talking to Sam tonight and telling him the realization that I've had and how nobody has seen my real personality. He says, "Not even me? Really??" Here's the thing about Sam. Someway, somehow, he knows me better than literally everyone else. He can read my mail like nobody's business. Its great. I love it. But there is really nothing I can hide. 

He says, "Girl, you can try to tell me that all you want, but you know its not true. I always knew you were hiding under a mask and the person you projected to be wasn't really you. I've always known you were crazy. I knew you were a freak and you have this crazy, weird, wild side inside you that you never let anyone see. Whenever I'd do something and you'd grin and shake your head, you were thinking, 'My God he's a freak...but I'm the same way, I just can't let anyone know that.' I know who you really are even though you have never let it out."

Seriously? Its ridiculous how well he knows me. Even things I've never told him, he knows.

I'm done hiding. I'm done not letting people see my true colors. There is no reason to hide behind a mask.

Romans 9:20 says, "But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”

I'm not this shy, quiet, timid person that everyone thinks I am. I'm loud. I'm crazy. I'm fun. I can be really obnoxious. I do weird things. I dance around the house like nobody is watching. I sing opera in my car, no matter what song is playing. I make awesome animal noises. I have an awesome sense of humor and can be super quick and witty when I have someone to banter with. I always want to talk to somebody. I don't care who. I love talking with people and sharing my opinion and heart with them. I hate that the enemy has kept me silent for so long, no more. My sister's boyfriend got me hopped up on caffeine the other night, and honestly, that was the most "me" I have ever been. Its fun being me.

I am enough. Its good enough for me to be just me. Just Kasey. I can be me because God made me just the way He wanted, and He sees me as perfect.Who am I to deny what He created just to make people happy? I don't care what people think, I really don't. There's no reason to. If people don't want to be around me because of my fire for God or my crazy weird personality, I'm okay with that. I can finally say that I am secure in who I am.

I make the best monkey noise ever. And I'm not ashamed of it.