Dirt by Mary MarantzExemplo

Day Three

Living Beyond Shame

Scripture: Isaiah 50:7; Isaiah 54:4; Romans 10:11

When I was little, a mean boy in the lunch line once told me, loud enough for everyone to hear, that I was even uglier when I smiled. 

So for a long time I stopped smiling. 

A mean girl once told me from the perfectly curated platform she loved to stand on, loud enough for everyone to hear, that the world only wanted pretty stories. 

So for a long time I stopped telling mine. 

A mean world once told me in all its not-so-subtle ways, loud enough for everyone to hear, that good girls never raise their voices, wild and untamed. 

So for a long time I got very quiet.

Then I stopped.

I stopped letting the world and other people tell me who I am.

Whether we realize it or not, every single one of us is walking around with the words someone else spoke over us tattooed on the sleeve where we once carried our heart. We absorb those words. Take them as the truth. Memorize them like the lyrics to a song we can’t get out of our heads. 

They tell us that our story will never be enough. That we will never be enough. But we never stop to ask ourselves, “What if they’re wrong?” 

We’ve gotten it in our heads that if these lives we are building aren’t pretty every step of the way, then we are somehow doing it wrong. We’ve started to believe that if it looks hard or messy or steeped in the struggle, then it won’t be celebrated. We start to despise these days of small beginnings, believing that if our story doesn’t measure up, then we will never measure up. 

We get really comfortable with the hiding. We get really safe not being seen. 

But the truth is, when we lean into this dirt that grew us, this struggle turned fertile soil where our roots run deep, we stand a little taller. Open our arms a little wider. Turn our tired faces to the sky. Trade our shame-stories for a strength inside us we never knew we had. And decide once and for all to own all of it. 

The hard, the gritty, the bittersweet.

This world may try to tell you it isn’t beautiful. But what if they’re wrong? 

Questions: What part of your story does the world try to tell you isn’t beautiful? How do you think God views that part of your story?