Seeing the Real Me

Isn’t he cute? He sure is, but he is a handful. People see his cute picture and think how fun it would be to have a bottle baby to feed, but that’s only one side of the story. That cute picture doesn’t show the weeks of trying to work with his mom and save her bag in order to feed her baby. The pictures don’t show the expense of feeding and raising a bottle baby and the sadness of having to take his mom to the stockyard. There are no photos of feeding “Rev” in the freezing cold and rain, late at night, or early in the morning. And there are no videos of his cries once he was moved to the barn where it was warm and dry, his mom gone. Rev can honestly say (if baby cows could talk), no one is seeing the real me!

We take a lot of pictures on the farm, especially of cattle. We use photos for the blog, we send photos to folks looking to buy cattle, and then sometimes we just take photos to have because we like this one or that one. Either way, our phones are full of cattle pictures and all of them aren’t pretty. We don’t show people the ones where the cows are covered in mud and poop. We try not to show the ones where the cows are standing goofy or not positioned in just the right way. We don’t always get it right, but we sure try not to post or share the “bad” photos.

Take this lovely photo, for instance! I would never post the top photo of those beautiful twins covered in poop. I would much rather post the lovelies in the bottom photo, all posed and looking at the camera! In the end, the poop shouldn’t affect the sale or the promotion, every cow is typically covered in it anyway, but somehow we are afraid to let that show. When instead, when you look passed the mud/poop in that top photo, you see two pretty cute calves that are pretty well put together from a cattle perspective!

As I lay in bed one night this week, trying to sleep, I was thinking about cattle photos of all things! I was thinking about my full icloud storage and how I needed to delete all of the “bad” photos on my phone. “Bad” photos…. I should have gotten up right then and started typing, because He was speaking. Why are you deleting those? Why can’t you use those? Why are they not good enough?

People need to see the imperfections. People need to see the mud and yes, the poop.

I know you think I am crazy, but that is exactly what He said. Just like our cattle photos, our lives are one big display of what we want people to see. I don’t want you to see that my house is a mess, so I show you the zoomed in photo of this one particular spot. I don’t want you to see that I am still in my pajamas and my hair is a mess, so that snapchat or whatever form of communication I send is of the ceiling and you don’t see me….

Everyone does it, from old to the young, we all show people what we want them to see. No matter what the scenario is, we are all showing people something different from reality.

Nope, I don’t want you to see my tears. I would seem weak. I definitely don’t want to share my screen on a zoom call and you see that I haven’t washed my hair in days and I am working in my pjs! I want you to think I’ve got it all together. I can’t dare let you know that the reason I came in late and left early was because my anxiety is through the roof and I just can’t fake it anymore and I’m afraid someone will see right through my act! I want you to see that I can handle anything that comes my way.

I don’t want you to see the picture of the bull standing in the mud, covered in mud. I would much rather you see one all posed and in green grass. I want you to see what I want you to see. But you know what? God is saying that people need to see us. People need to see the Christian who is trying, but is struggling. People need to see that you might have a little mud on your face, but you know the one who can clean it all up.

It’s time for some of us to be real. It’s time for Christians to be real. Being a Christian doesn’t make life a cake walk. Being a Christian means that when you go through life and life throws poop in your face, you aren’t alone and He is there to wipe you off and pick you up.

Being a Christian also means that we are supposed to share in order to help others. It’s just like cattle photos. If it weren’t for other cattle people looking at my bad photos and telling me what they had learned and how to take better photos, I would never have learned to do better. ( I still have a looong way to go. I am NOT a photographer!)

Someone out there needs to know your struggle. Someone out there needs to know that they aren’t alone. Someone out there needs to know what you are going through. They need what you learned. Maybe they have something you can learn from them. If we don’t share, if we don’t learn to be real, we may miss out something that God has in store for us.

So, here it is. I am weak. I am struggling. I am being real. BUT, I am dealing with it, because I am letting God deal with it! I am leaning on HIM and only HIM. And guess what? I am singing, and laughing, sleeping at night and no tears! He’s got me and you know what? He has got you TOO!

     But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:9-10
     But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7
     I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. Psalms 139:14-16
     For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11