sandwich boards

{template via @prettyhonestshop on instagram}

at some point every day i think about how strange life is. drilling down into the meta-analysis of my brain and trying to parse out the why of how we live our lives, honestly, it's just odd. and it may just be me. but i'm also confronted by the fact that things are not how they should be. 

no matter what you believe i think we can all agree that this world holds an overabundance of brokenness right alongside the joy and wonder. it's simultaneously awe-inspiring and messier than we ever would've imagined as children. 

i think about what i tell the world about myself each day. we all wear sandwich boards of some kind. day in and day out. some of us have closets full of them. different ones. in the morning, we ask ourselves, "who do i want to be today?"

some of us paint it big and bold and carry a bell, and some of us try to sneak by under the radar, not sure where to place our identity. 

but we all have them. we all place our identity in something {even if it's in being a non-conformist}. we all have beliefs about the world. we all put our trust in something {or someone}.

we all do it. but do we remember when we look at the people around us that the sandwich boards we all wear do not encompass our entire personhood? how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen are not the same things as who we are. i know that about myself. i know that about my friends. but we tend to see the fullness of people to the depth that we know them. 

when i look at myself in the mirror i see all of the things i know about myself because they're part of who i am; she and i are fairly well acquainted. when i look at my husband or my kids i take in all of what i know about them. this is true of strangers we pass on the street too. we take in all of what we know about them. i do not see the essence of all of the people around me because i don't know all of them. but that doesn't mean they aren't real actual people with the same fullness and depth as my family and friends. 

we all have parts of ourselves that we don't like. we all have struggles and things about our own life we wish weren't true. sometimes we lie to ourselves about them, but we know they're there. we don't wear any of those things on our sandwich board, but they impact what sandwich board we feel we should pull from the racks each day. 

there's the reasons for what we do, and then there's the reasons behind the reasons. the deep-seated longing for something different. for something more.

we all want to be fully seen and fully known, but we're more than a little afraid that we won't be fully loved if we allow that to happen. 

that's what we find so unbelievable about God. God doesn't make sense to us. we think we're too far gone. that underneath we're not actually lovable. not down to the depths. not when we drag the well. but he already knows it. all of it.

there is no hiding from God. and his well of forgiveness and love for each of us is infinite. infinite. as in never-ending, never-stopping, always and forever.

it doesn't make sense. but God doesn't have to fully make sense to us. he's God. if we could fully understand him, he wouldn't be God. 

"does the clay say to the potter, 'what are you making?' "

{isaiah 45:9}

xoxo