31 Days Living Inside Out: You are More

As I was going about the early part of the day thinking about my day three post the words "YOU ARE MORE", came to mind. I love the song by Tenth Avenue North by that title. The chorus goes like this:

You are more than the choices that you make

You are more than the sum of your past mistakes

You are more than the problems you create,

You've been remade.

I love that, though I like to look at it as being reminded rather than remade, because I believe I am who He created me to be, sometimes I just forget, some people have never known that they have always been known by Him...but that's for another time.

So often, especially as women, we find our identity and value in the "do's", "what's" and "who's" of our lives, in the woulda, coulda, shoulda's. All these things are external, physical, tangible realities. Every one of them can change in some degree or another at any given moment. Thus, they cannot define our identity, our value, our worth. We are more than a mom, a wife, a daughter, a businesswoman, an employee, a leader, an athlete. We are heart, soul, spirit, passion, dreams, we are KNOWN by the one who created all of mankind, we are His daughters, made in His image, and everything and everyone He made was good. When the external changes, the internal remains. 

We have gone through some changes in the last few months that have been very hard. Yet, I have to remind myself that those things that I "was" or "did" previously did not/do not define me or who I am. It is a constant daily reminder that I am so much more than the external. Living Inside Out is always intentional because the "outside" can often scream at us so much louder. It's when we can hear through the chaos, "I know you, I love you, you are mine and I am yours". When we let the words from Galatians ring true "The Spirit finds expression in love, joy, peace, endurance, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self control" ~Galatians 5:22 (mirror) 

I love to take pictures. Especially of my girls playing soccer or golf. I love taking pictures of their teams to share on their FB pages. I have a nice camera, but it's several years old and my lens even older and not very high quality, but I've always thought the pictures turned out great. Well, one other mom has a camera as well as a very nice lens, which at times causes lens envy..lol..and the occasional feelings of "my pictures won't be good enough", but they usually are. Then the other day I learned another mom got a new camera and a really nice lens and my "envy, confidence" meter went off the charts. I began to think "Great! My cheap kit zoom lens is no longer going to cut it, but I don't have a couple thousand for a new lens, I am no longer going to be needed to take pictures". Often I see other bloggers and their food photography has grown leaps and bounds while mine has, well, not grown leaps and bounds..I begin to think "I should just quit, I don't take time to really learn, I don't go to blog conferences, etc..." Uh...HELLO!!! I was immediately transferred to the land of Outside thinking. This is just one example...I'm sure you can think of many others in your own life. I know I can, whether it be my yard, my house, my kids, my husband. I had to/have to stop myself and say, "you do these things because you love it, not to get recognition, and if all you ever did was take pictures and videos of your own kids, that would be enough; If you were the only person who read your blog, that would be enough". 

Living Inside Out....intentional, not always easy, but always worth it. 

One of my favorite songs is by Rebecca Friedlander called Mirror. I will leave you with that today...take time to look past the Outside and begin seeing how much more you are. 





With Joy UNquenchable,