What! You Too?

Photo courtesy of Patricia White

I love books. They connect to my soul in a deep way. Certain authors I really love, and develop a “pseudo” friendship with them in a heart way, not a stalker way.  I talk about Ann (yes, Ann Voskamp) as if we were good friends, because I know if we had an opportunity we would be. C.S. Lewis  says, “friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: ‘What! You too? I thought I was the only one.” And that is why I know Ann would be my friend, because I have read her words, and have said on many occasion, “you too?” I have found a new friend lately, if you have been around here for the last few weeks, you know I am part of a book launch team for Michelle DeRusha’s latest book, True You (#TrueYou). I have found myself laughing out loud and thinking, oh my word, I am not the only one. She spent 8 months with pain in her elbow before getting it treated. If you read about my IT band (https://inkblotlife.wordpress.com/2018/10/30/it-band/), you know my stubbornness lasted a year.

http://michellederusha.com/true-you-sample-chapter/

I am highlighting many pages, and want to send copies to many friends, because I just so relate. She speaks in word pictures, and mentions things about the brain, two things that speak to my heart, and I so relate to. I love when books come at the right time. I am in a season of pruning and growing. It is a season of learning who I really am, and how to walk as my truest self. I have said recently, I feel like it has been 20 years of detoxing from my growing up years. There was much good, but there was much dysfunction. Much of my personality has more to do with my survival skills from growing up in my home than who I really am. Some are who I am now, and have allowed me to relate and interact with people that I am pretty sure I would not understand without the life I had. I would not trade my life because God has done a beautiful redemptive work, but the last bunch of years have been about learning who I am, what I like, what God is really like, and what that means for me.

It is refreshing for me as I read the words in True You and know I am not the only one who has wrestled with this. I am not the only one who has rushed through life doing,  instead of being. I have worked at achieving, and becoming something instead of being and becoming who God already created me to be. It has been such a fresh adventure discovering who I am really am, and growing into that, to be comfortable in my own skin, to truly have that peace that passes all understanding. I have been blessed with a new found confidence to allow myself to be okay, even when things are not okay. God is doing this work in me and teaching me these skills, but more importantly teaching me how to live in the tension of life even as my default is to fix and help. It is learning how to wait on God. I am not always good at it, but because His mercies are new every morning, I am getting better. I am so thankful for my “friends” like Michelle and Ann, and my “real in my daily life” friends who choose to be honest and vulnerable, so people like me can say, “you too?” and no longer feel like the only one. As I read the words of my new “friend,” I appreciate her brave and it gives me hope to continue to push into those areas of pruning, and learning because there is hope and God is writing a good story in her and in me.

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