When I was little I absolutely hated playing “Cops & Robbers” … for a couple of
reasons: I didn’t think it was an appropriate message for kids our age … and oh
yeah, the REAL reason: I could never catch my cousin (even when I took my shoes
off, smh).
So who would have thought that I would still be playing “Cops
& Robbers” 20 years later? ... Just a slightly different twist to it: Copping out of my shortcoming, failures,
& sin and continuously ROBBING myself
of the growth I so justly needed. #Confession:
I actually think 2013 may have been the year of “most excuses ever made” by me.
There’s
my truth, so deal.
At the root of all the excuses and cop-outs was simply pride. Admitting “hey, I screwed up… I dropped the
ball … although I DID have good intentions, I didn’t follow through” meant
facing that #PerfectPatty isn’t so “perfect” after all. This is the thing: I didn’t mind NOT being perfect, I just had a problem ADMITTING I wasn’t perfect. “Perfect
Patty messed up.”
Pride made me keep everything I struggled with, battled
and face bottled up, emotionally isolated in a crowd of people, and not open up
to the people God’s blessed me with to be accountable with. Listen: I got a 4.0 last semester all while my hair was shedding like crazy because
of stress and I almost had a mental breakdown.
Didn’t even tell anyone because I thought it showed “weakness”…
then I was reminded that not only is God's strength made perfect in my weakness (2 Cor 12:9) but also that God has blessed me with people who help me carry
me when I’m weak and they are strong (Rom
15:1; Gal 6:2) … as I often do for others.
WHY am I sharing all of this?
Couple reasons: (1)
God’s challenging me to be more transparent so He can be glorified even more and
(2) I want to encourage you to
utilize the folks God’s given you to be authentic with so that you can grow
WITHOUT the stress of secret pressures! NOT
saying go out and run your business down to the first person you see
(discretion is KEY!), but I’m speaking of those people who GOD has hooked you
up with. (S/O to MY accountability partners!)
This would be a person who’s proven to be a trustworthy friend,
someone who is willing to pray for/with you and respects the weight of your
transparency. Reach out to the people in
your life who will call you out on your foolishness in private, correct you in a loving
way, then pray for you to be built back up … and you do the same for them as "as iron sharpens iron" (Prov. 27:17). It’s made a WORLD of difference over here!
Love y'all!
Allison
P.S. - Check out this
video "Christians Frontin'" by @whatisjoedoing that actually
convicted me about not writing this two weeks ago when I was supposed. (Y'all
forgive me tho, right?)
