Welcome to “Freely Authentic”! I pray you will find this blog encouraging and full of hope. It is my personal journey to authenticity. I hope you follow me and you can discover your authenticity too! This is meant to be a tool of encouragement, of risk-taking into the unknown, and a tool for both you and I to uncover and unravel the intricacies in the mystery of who we were created to be.

What does it mean to be authentic? Authentic is to be genuine, not false or copied, of undisputed origin, entitled to acceptance or belief because of agreement with knownfacts or experience; reliable; trustworthy. 

All of us are looking for the authentic person we’ve been created to be. Authenticity says we know who we are and we don’t have to be a copy of something or someone else. We are fully known within ourselves and that is the freedom that we walk in that allows us to express who we are.

As a child around the age of 10 or so, my parents divorced. My father was an alcoholic, and my mother had just about all she could take. I remember when they sat all 7 of us children down at the dining room table and explained to us that they were getting divorced. From this time on, there was something that rested upon me and I immediately felt that I had to step up to the plate and be responsible. I remember my oldest brother and myself, the middle child, mainly being the ones who were the ‘responsible’ ones at that time. Mom had a nervous breakdown and that placed even more ‘false responsibility’ on my plate. As I grew up, to be accepted, loved, seen and known, I was unaware and threw myself into being all things to all people. This caused me to become a people pleaser, never really addressing or acknowledging how I felt about myself. Just ‘do what you’re told’ gripped me for life. The lie of ‘children are to be seen and not heard’ hovered over me for so many years and has continued to follow me all the way into adulthood.

So because of this life I had been given as a child, my authenticity was compromised and I never ‘knew’ who I was. This is the journey I am on today. God has healed many places in my heart the last five years, but there is still so much more. I am beginning to see, beginning to express, beginning to delight and become excited about the person that is emerging from the shadows. This person is becoming freer everyday!

God didn’t create us and then tell us to go be like someone else. He created us in His image therefore, if we are to be like anyone we are to be like Him. Because of our humanity and having un-renewed minds, that opens the door for us to begin floundering in our lives as we grow up, wondering who we are etc. It is a daily walk to have our minds renewed everyday so old mindsets don’t come creeping back in. There is nothing more that the devil wants than to keep up bound, silenced and in chains. It is his mission to do that.

Being authentic means that each of us carries a part of the nature of God within us that no one else on the planet carries. I am a part of Him that you are not part of.

Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you…”

God knew who we were before we were ever conceived. He saw us from the very beginning. He had a plan for our lives already stamped in the heavens! He knew us before we there was any formation of us. That just blows my mind. Wow! What an incredible God. Yes, our lives took turns and went down roads that were not in His plan, but through His faithfulness, mercy and grace He never leaves us or forsakes us. He was always there, He is here now and He will always be with us everyday and every moment that lies ahead of us.

I would like to encourage you today to begin to look within and take a good long look…do you like what you see? Is what you see authentic? Is what you see genuine, true, reliable and trustworthy? Sometimes when we just take a moment God can show us so many things. He loves you just the way you are right now, but He also knows who your REALLY are! Take a few moments and see what God says to you. Jesus will never make you feel condemned, but will always show us how He sees us and will always encourage us to take a risk, step out of the boat, and come to Him and be freely authentic!

Declaration: I will not be bound by old mindsets, nor silenced by my fears and I refuse to believe any lie that the enemy has for me. I will continually renew my mind in the Word of God and time spent with The One who created me. He is the true model of authenticity. His love, His peace, His joy and His hope will fill my life on a daily basis and I will become more and more like Him. My identity comes from time spent with the Creator!

I am Freely Authentic!