Intimidation

I’m not putting up a title for this until I finish, because I know what I want to say, but I’m not real sure how it’s going to come out in the end. That, my friends is what I love about writing!

There is one area of blogging that has caused me some confusion lately. The whole idea of writing to a specific “audience” is a tricky deal for me. I know that some purists I have read are saying that they do not care even one little bit about who reads them or even if anyone reads them at all. They just write for the pleasure of writing. They have removed their “Followers” thingy to prove that they are not affected by anyone’s’ opinion of them at all. I am admitting here & now that I DO CARE! I love writing for writings’ sake but it holds little allure beyond filling up my journals if no one will read it.

That being said, I have struggled with the “Who” of who I am writing TO! As I have said in previous posts, I am eager to explore a much broader collection of people & personalities & beliefs through this webby world. I, myself am a strong believer in God & have been extremely intentional in trying to speak & write in a dialect other than Christianese. Having grown up in the church world, we find ourselves saying some pretty strange things to each other & totally understanding it! To get out of the habit of Christianese is not an easy one!

So, I could decide that my target audience is Christian, since I definitely have a heart to bring Christians back to Christ. Ha! …………… Oops! Christianese Alert!....”have a heart to…”? But if I did that, I would lose any readers who are sick of being preached at or who have other faith views. And that would just be sad to me.

On the other hand, if I delete every subject or event in my life that is connected to my faith, it leaves very little for me to talk or write about. At first I thought I could do it all. And, I think I have so far kept the churchy stuff out of my posts pretty well. Or at least I have interspersed the spiritual stuff with every day life kind of subjects. I really hate the idea of alienating any of you with language that sounds like I know it all or believe that I am superior just because of my faith in God. I do know Him well enough to know that He also would cringe at any allusion to that idea.

With all that blabbering in mind I have a wonderful discovery to share with you! (Great idea! I will change the font to this in the rest of this post to show you that I realize I may be using Christianese, OK?) Hope this doesn’t end up being too long, then I won’t even want to post it at all!

Anyway, I have been on a journey of realizing my true identity in a deep & profound way for the last few years. As I have said before, I grew up being a very fearful person, to an almost crippling degree. But the biggest fear has always been other people & what they may think about me. Another word for it would be intimidation. Oh, it is a horrible, horrible thing to live with! When you enter a room & are faced with a person or a situation that scares you to death & causes you to freeze up inside, it makes you feel like an idiot no matter how mature & wise you may be.

Recently I have been drawn to learning what God sees when He looks at me & I have found that His view is extremely different than mine! When I spend time alone with Him, actively listening to Him, I hear Him tell me what a strong, wise & courageous woman I am. (To hear Him is easier than you may think, He kinda sounds like your imagination.) Well, His description sounds like the opposite of how I often feel, so I must choose which to believe.

I have chosen to believe His view instead of mine. God has shown me my true IDENTITY & that comes in very handy when my old enemy of INTIMIDATION comes around to haunt me. Since the thoughts I have about myself when hit with intimidation are obviously the opposite of what God told me, they must be lies. I remind myself of who I really am when I hear those lies in my head. I am then able to shut them down & live my life with real freedom! It’s amazing!

Here is the fun part! My time with God is actually any time that I give Him my full attention. We talk all day off & on, but the moments when I really still my heart & have some alone prayer time with God are very intimate & important to me. It is during those INTIMATE times that He gives me my true identity…. Or my true ID. Look at this!...........

INTIMIDATE

INTIMATE

What is the difference between these 2 words? If you remove the letters ID from intimidate you are left with the word intimate! My intimate times with God show me my true ID & when I KNOW WHO I AM I cannot be intimidated! I love that! My love of words revealed this little insight to me. In fact….when I know who I am in God….I intimidate the Liar who loves to speak ugliness to us & cause us to hide from God. (Yes, I just mentioned the devil & yes, I do believe he is real & that he hates God so much he spends all his time trying to get us to hate God also.)

Ok, so I shared my true heart with you without reserve. Take me or leave me…..no, no, please don’t leave me! Remember I really, really care about my “following” numbers, & I care about you who are my new cyber-friends! So, I love God & hear voices in my head…..I have never seen or heard any of you in the flesh & I still believe in YOU!