Before I started writing here and digging deeper into purpose and identity, I spent a lot of time reading blogs. There were a couple that I frequented more than once a week, and I learned about these women and their families. I wanted to live the life they lived. They seemed to have a lot of wisdom, something that I also wanted to flourish in my own life, and they seemed to have “it” figured out. They were the women I modeled my Instagram posts after, and even my own blogging.
Soon enough, those women became authors of great books, and they started traveling all over the country speaking at different women’s events. I stopped watching them from afar because I was jealous of their life. Truthfully, I always had been. They made it look easy.
Last night I laid in bed after spending some time praying over my goals for the next year. I never thought I would be one to set goals, let alone actually stick to them, but it’s a bandwagon I’m willing to jump on if God gets the glory. I was thinking about the women I see each week, and I realized that my perspective had changed. For a long time, I looked on at the lives of women I had never met. It wasn’t bad; I don’t think I would be doing what I do with such bravery if they hadn’t modeled it for me first. But my perspective is not the same.
At one time, I was looking around at the big, wide internet and all of its people, and I felt like I was seeing the world and God’s big picture. But I was woefully disconnected from my community, my women who were right in front of me. As time has changed me, I’m looking less and less at the big, wide internet and all the women I want to be like, but don’t actually know. My vision is getting smaller as God’s vision in me is getting bigger. I realize I’m longing to see the Gospel come alive in the faces of women I know deeply. I don’t just want to meet the women I have longed to emulate in the past. I want the Gospel to be real right here. I want to stop looking at everyone else thinking God is more alive elsewhere. The same God in them is my God, too.
And so I ask myself: What does it mean for the Gospel to come alive in the women I love?
It means that I have to be willing to let it come alive in me too. The reality that I can not earn grace, but that it was gifted to me. The truth that Christ pardoned me when I deserved nothing, and yet He gave me everything. The anthem that I am free from any expectation here in this world; I am free to be a woman of God.
It also means that everything in my life is going to feel messy. I think that’s the hard part. It’s humbling to admit that this is not pretty. I will put on makeup for it to run off my face, and I will curl my hair for it to flatten by 3 PM. Those things don’t matter. What matters its that Christ gets more glory today than He did yesterday, and I serve Him hard. It means knees to the earth when it’s a mess, and hands up in the air acknowledging that He has got it all.
The Gospel coming alive means that our vision is small and God’s vision is huge. We fix our eyes on our people right here, and we let God dream the big dreams and plant them in our hearts where He needs them to grow.
I am thankful for women who have gone before me, women who walk with me, and women who are coming behind me. Walking with you is a prize in itself. Your God is my God, sister. Looking forward to raising our hands to victory, together.
JANELLE DELAGRANGE 