Girl, Wash Your Faceনমুনা

God gave you gifts and strengths so that you could accomplish his plan. And while you may meet resistance as you look to use those gifts, you are not alone in your struggle.

Working women sometimes have to fight their way through patriarchal systems. Working mothers get backlash from in-laws or parents who can’t understand our desire to work, while stay-at-home

moms slam us for being away from our children. I’ll bet stay-at-home moms feel similarly judged by working women who can’t relate to their life choices. It’s as though we’re all children on a playground trying to say whatever others want to hear; trying to hide all the parts that others might not understand. It makes me wonder how many women are walking around living into half their personality and in doing so, denying who their creator made them to be.

Do you really think God made you—uniquely, wonderful you—in hopes you would deny your true self because it might be off-putting to others? I can’t believe that’s true. The more I’ve thought about it, the more I believe that God made me this way. He knew I would have a worker’s heart, and he knew I would want to build big dreams. In the same way, he knew another one of his children was meant to stay home and raise her beautiful babies while another daughter of his wouldn’t want to have kids at all.

Have you spent a lifetime muting yourself for fear of what others will think? Are you an entrepreneur who calls your business a hobby because you worry about what your mother-in-law will say or because it’s safer to keep everyone’s expectations low? Are you hesitating to go back to school because you think you’re not smart enough? Do you stop yourself from daring to try something new because you’re already positive you’ll fail? Do you remain silent when you have so much to say? Do you believe you’ll never do better or be better than you are right now because of your family of origin? Do you hesitate to admit your dreams aloud because you’re nervous about others making fun of you or judging you for your choices?

I believe that you are not a mistake—and feeling guilt about who you are (working, staying at home, overweight, underweight, overeducated, uneducated, emotional, bookish, street-smart, or whatever) does a disservice to yourself and the creator who made you. There are hundreds of ways to lose yourself, but the easiest of them all is refusing to acknowledge who you truly are in the first place. You—the real you—is not an accident.