sixty day shift: God can handle all of me

There’s always been this whisper in my soul that says I’m too much: too tall, too big, too loud, too quiet, too opinionated, too critical, too bossy, too eager, too lazy, just too much.

Some of those whispers have come from outside and some of them have come from inside myself. Some have been uttered once and they stuck, while others have been repeated over and over again until they became like a mantra for how I was more than was needed, more than was allowed.

The world and my own self-doubt have told me this in equal parts. I believed it wholeheartedly, swallowed the harsh pills friends and critics were handing out, and lived in the aftermath, feeling ill-fitting and shameful.

But these shifts, these last sixty days, have told my whispers they were wrong. And not just answered the whisper with a better, gentler whisper of truth, but a yell, a scream from the rooftops that I’m okay just the way I am, made in his image and showing others a glimpse of him occasionally, mostly when I’m least expecting it.

He’s offered me a reprieve from “too much” and said he can handle it all, that he welcomes it all, not just the shined-up bits that look okay to everyone else, but ALL OF IT. The pieces I keep hidden because they’re not attractive. The pieces I forget about because they hurt to remember. The pieces that I force too often because I think those are the things people want.

He can handle my anger, my disappointment, my questions and doubts. It is one thing to know what truth is and another to feel truth. I feel these truths now, I am living them, set free by them.

The whispers haven’t left, but they have dulled. I know better answers to them than I did sixty days ago. I know in my bones, in my being, I am loved and loved well. That all my pieces are safe with Jesus and we’ll figure out the rest together.

It is like I finally started breathing.

What could he do with you in sixty days?