Hey Girlfriend,

You know that fake it ’til you make it? It doesn’t work. Have you found that out, too?

In leadership training, we were taught to dress for the job we wanted, not for the one we already had. That makes sense since it helps people to envision us already in that role. But there’s a difference between dressing for the job we want and pretending to be someone we’re not.

Have you ever done that? Pretended to be someone you’re not?

I think we all have.

Have you heard about my cheerleading tryout story? Not my finest moment and you can read about it here, but here’s the short version:

I wanted to be one. I wanted to wear the cute uniform and be all happy and peppy on pep rally days. But I didn’t make the squad. Yup, that happened. I think it was more embarrassing than devastating because I was a hot mess as they say. It didn’t mean I wasn’t peppy, but evidently peppy alone didn’t cut it. The faking a backflip ’til I made it didn’t work because yeah, nobody can fake a backflip.

But we like to belong, don’t we? We like to fit in and we’re willing to give up our me to be some me we make up. Sometimes our real voices get lost in all the noise so we just go with the flow, join the crowd, follow the leader.

We want to be accepted so we buy a new purse or get our nails done. We can’t figure out who we really are anyway, so we just make something up. It may work for a while, but the truth is, we will never find peace until we live our real lives.

I don’t know who coined the phrase “the struggle is real” but I wish it were me. I see it all the time with women who just need to find their way back to their me. They need to find their way back to I’m okay, this is the real me, this is who I really am. Maybe that’s you, friend.

Can I offer some encouragement?

It’s never too late to start living our real life, and it’s never too late to find our real me.

I spoke at a women’s event and likened our real life to a line on a transparency. Do you remember those from school? If you’re too young to know what I’m talking about, ask someone older, but you place this plastic transparency on an illuminated surface and it projects the image onto a movie screen.

I imagine God having a transparency with our life’s plans and we having our own transparency with our life’s plans. The life we’ve been living.

If we were to lay one on top of the other, what would project onto the screen?

Would the lines line up? Where would we see our plan veering off from God’s plan for us? I wanted those women to know how much we are missing when we don’t live our real lives. I told them how sad it was to me that so many are walking around without direction, living a life they created on their own.

God has plans for us, girlfriend.

I can’t imagine that our plans could possibly be better than God’s because we’re not God. Isn’t that a relief?  As ridiculous as it sounds that we would even consider ourselves to be God, actually, it may not be all that off-base.

When we try to run our own lives and do whatever we want to do, we are acting as our own god. We are taking the plans we’ve created, the made-up ones, and living them out instead of the real-life plans God already created for us to live.

Photo by Josephine Amalie Paysen on Unsplash

How do we know what God’s plans are for us?

Well, we ask Him to show us. He may not use an overhead projector, those are so last century, but He will show us.

When we are in Christ we have the Holy Spirit as our guide. He will let us know when something isn’t right. He will let us know when walking this way is better than that way. He will let us know when we should go or we when should stay.

Do you know Jesus?

A relationship with Jesus is key to living our real lives. Without a relationship with Jesus Christ, we don’t get the Holy Spirit and we don’t get to find out who we were created to be. We can’t find our way back to me without Him. Because He is the one who created us. He created our me.

Who knows the heart of a painting better than the artist who painted it?

So live it, girlfriend. Live your real life.

No more fake it ’til we make it. We can live our real lives and help others find the Way to live theirs.

‘”For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.”‘ Jeremiah 29:11-12

This is a snippet of the book I’m currently writing. Give me a shout-out if it resonates with you in any way. I would love to hear how it did, just a quick yes would be fantastic. And it would bless me so much if you’d consider sharing it.

Much Love & Joy,

Doris