Naked and proud no matter the scars

New Year’s Eve is often a time to reflect on what you have done and learned in the year ending, and what you want to do and learn in the year to come. Typically, those things for me have revolved around what was going on with the kids, or with my career, or with the other busyness that comes with life. This year is a bit different for me. This year, when I look back at these past 12 months, the thing that is most significant is none of those things.

Don’t get me wrong, it was an incredible year in the life of my family. Aaron graduated top of his class, and gave an amazing valedictory address that made me so proud I could hardly stand myself. He was admitted to and completed his first semester at an amazing university where he has made tons of friends and has blossomed in ways I never would have imagined. Clayton has grown as an artist, and as a student, and most importantly as a person. He humbles me each and every day with his maturity, his grace, and his loving heart. Mike and I celebrated 20 years of marriage, and successfully survived sending a child away to college. I had a wonderful year at work, making a difference in ways that matter, and growing relationships with colleagues that will last long beyond my time in this position.

Those are all big things. Good things. Great things even.

But the thing that I look back on this year with the most gratitude and the most pride isn’t an event that happened to me or to my family but something that happened inside me.

The thing that means the most to me from this past year is learning the meaning of real courage.

I always thought courage meant that you pushed through when hard things happened.

I thought that I was courageous when I survived child sexual abuse without ever telling anyone what I had gone through. I thought I was courageous when my dad died and I stayed strong for my mom even when what I really wanted to do was fall apart. I thought I was courageous when I survived the end of a marriage and a difficult and unexpected end of a much loved job to start a new one and a new life. I thought I was courageous when Aaron was so sick and there were no answers and no way I could help him and then the answers we found were scary, and instead of falling apart, I read, and learned, and taught myself to be a better advocate for him. I thought that I was courageous when I was sure I was being led to a new stage in my career but doors kept closing in my face and I kept knocking on new ones, despite the disappointment and the heartbreak.

This is what I thought courage looked like.

I learned this past year that those things aren’t about courage. They are about perseverance.

Real courage, true courage, doesn’t look like that at all.

Real courage comes from being willing to strip off all the armor that you’ve built up over a lifetime.

Real courage comes from telling your story, even when it’s painful and even when it shames you.

Real courage comes from being vulnerable with people with the truth of who you are.

Real courage comes from being willing to face the pain of your past, and walk through it, one step at a time, one painful memory at a time, until it doesn’t hold power over you any longer.

Real courage comes from being willing to say to those closest to you, this is what my inside voices tell me, and I need your help knowing the truth. Real courage comes from learning to believe them when they tell you the truth, even when it’s not what you tell yourself.

Real courage comes from speaking your beliefs, and your passions, and the hopes of your heart, even when you know that not everyone will understand or agree.

Real courage comes from being unafraid to let go of what you always thought you would be or should be and embracing the plan that God has for you, even when it makes no practical sense to do so and people may think you’re crazy.

Real courage comes from just being real.

I’m not the same person that I was a year ago. When I look back at photos from this time last year, I am amazed at how different I look. I can say that it’s because I’ve lost weight. I can say that it’s because I’m eating better and exercising more. I can say all those things. And some of that is true. But the inner glow that I have now, the spark in my eye, and the joy in my heart, those have nothing to do with the physical changes that have happened over this past year. They have to do with the transformation on the inside.

The changes in me don’t come with the physical weight I lost, but the emotional weight. The expectations of who I should be that were from society and not of God. The weight of guilt and shame that I carried both from things I did and things that were done to me. The limitations that I placed on myself as to how God could use me.

I’m far from perfect. I’m far from done. I’m far from the point where I have stopped listening to the voice of the enemy who tells me I’m not enough. Or I’m too much. Or I don’t matter and don’t belong. Or I can’t fully serve God the way that God intends me to because of mistakes I’ve made and shame I carry. That’s a battle I will fight my whole life.

I’m far from perfect. But I’m trying really hard to be real.

Because that’s where real courage comes from.

Naked and proud no matter the scars.