Authenticity

Genuine:  Truly what something is said to be; authentic.

I am drawn to genuine people.  I long for authentic relationships, conversations, encounters with people and with God.  I have an insatiable need for honesty and vulnerability and realness.  Facades, games, pretense, pedestals, living on the surface - it saps the life out of me.  We're all messy somewhere, in some corner of our lives, every one of us.  We're all human.  

I'm not ashamed of my mess anymore. The only reason I ever hold back information about my life is to protect those in the story who aren't so ready to have their dirty laundry hanging out for all to judge, or because the person I am talking to might not be able to handle the fact that I have, indeed, kicked a hole in the wall or punched my husband or swore at my kids.  I don't withhold because I'm ashamed.  I may withhold because I don't want your judgment, your rejection, your condescending solutions to my problems. I'll hide the mess to dodge the condescension.  But then you won't really know me and you'll think you really like the person who is actually the inauthentic me.  

My closest friends can hear all the garbage and their jaw doesn't hit the floor.  They don't change the conversation or pull back from me just a little.  They don't try to fix me, they love me.  They walk with me. They sit with me but offer hope, not answers. They offer me the strength of their loving presence in the middle of my mess.  And then change happens.  Answers come.  Life is given.  Vulnerability begets vulnerability and the relationship is authentic.  We are known and not rejected.  

I am so thankful that I have these friends.  It is my goal to be this friend, this mom, this wife, this woman.  I aspire to authenticity.