You are not who you were yesterday,
You are not who you will be tomorrow.
You’re in the middle of the beautiful process of becoming.
We fight that as women, don’t we? We tell ourselves we have to be it all, do it all, know it all now. We deny ourselves permission to learn. And when we can’t learn, we can’t grow.
I thought about this recently as I stood in the curtain section of TJ Maxx saying these words over and over to myself: You’re learning to decorate your house. You’re learning to decorate your house.
Doesn’t that sound silly? But it was much better than what I said over and over last time: You can’t decorate your house. What’s the matter with you?
I thought, somehow, that being born a woman should automatically give me the ability to know if the sheer or heavy curtains would look better, which color they should be, and how every shade of light would look coming through them. And when I didn’t, I felt like a failure. I’ve had similar experiences in the photo frame aisle of target, in the bedding section of a department store, in the cutest little home decor shop you’ve ever seen.
I share this example because it’s amazing how small a crack shame needs to slip through in our lives. When did we decide to judge ourselves on everything from our ability to pick curtains to how good a parent we are compared to the mom next to us?
God doesn’t judge us that way. He knows “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field” {1 Pt. 1:24}. I used to read that verse as simply meaning life is brief. But I’m seeing it with new eyes lately. And I think what God is also reminding us of here is that grass is growing, flowers are growing, WE are growing.
Which means he knows that from our first breath to our last, we are in process. And that applies to everything from picking out curtains to becoming who He’s created us to be.
And you know what? God’s okay with that. He already knows us better than we know ourselves. And if He’s okay with it, then we can be too. He doesn’t ask us for perfection. Just growth. Every day, a little bit at a time, all the way until we’re Home with Him.
You are not who you were yesterday,
You are not who you will be tomorrow.
You’re in the middle of the beautiful process of becoming.
–Holley Gerth is the author of the new book You’re Made for a God-sized Dream: Opening the Door to All God Has for You
Leave a Comment