Daily Devotional – 10/16/18 “Who are you?”

I watched the movie “Nappily Ever After,” on Netflix last night. Good movie. I absolutely loved the fact, the ending (without giving the movie away) wasn’t like all movies that ends unrealistically. I say this because not every reality ends happily ever after. For those of you who have never heard of this movie, it’s about Violet who has been raised to believe she needs to always be perfect, especially when it comes to her hair. She’s get up extra early to make sure her boyfriend woke up to her being “perfect.” She thought she was giving him what he wanted until he told her, being with her felt like they’d been on their first date for two years. The movie showed how men would stop and look at her when she was perfect but didn’t even bat an eye when she was going through an identity crisis. Reality hit her in the face and it made her take a step back. Won’t life do you like this? But here is what I got from the movie. It wasn’t that men were looking at when she was “perfect” and ignoring her when she wasn’t. They were looking because when she was “perfect” she was bold yet imperfect, she walked as if life was dragging her. In her pursuit for perfection, she was unapologetic and she walked with her head held high but at the first sign of crisis, she folded.

You want to know why? Because she didn’t know the person behind the hair and makeup and when she removed those things, she was forced to come face to face with who she really was. And because she didn’t know her, she didn’t know how to love and embrace her. And for some of us, we are in the same shoes. You’ve had the façade up for so long, pretending to be strong but if the right gust of wind come, it will knock you clean over. You jump from relationship to relationship because you don’t know your identity of singleness to even cuddle it. You walk around smiling, inwardly broken. Helpful to everybody else because you’re afraid of admitting you need help too. You accept every invitation, go to every party, dressing up and playing the part because truth is, you’re afraid of the voices when you’re by yourself and it’s quiet. You don’t know you and that’s dangerous. You don’t know you and that’s detrimental to who you can become. Who are you? No, I mean for real, who are you? When the wig and makeup is off, who are you? When the suit is thrown across the bed, who are you? When the lights are off, who are you? When the church doors are closed, who are you? Without social media, who are you? Without your title, awards and accolades who are you? Do you even know? Bible shares in Ephesians 2:10, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”