A U T H E N T I C

Since I was in middle school, I’ve always assumed people are fake. All people. It’s the rare ones that aren’t. And as a middle schooler, I saw the world as plastic and I remember that being so odd and kinda frightening.
And I’ve just accepted that.
That being said, I’ve realized you can’t tell people things, fearing that if I’m open they’ll take that vulnerability, my brokenness, and run with it. You can’t be real.
I am fake.

We aren’t authentic. We aren’t real, myself included. We pass someone we know and exchange light conversation. But by the end of five minutes, you don’t know how that person really is. You don’t know what’s really going on. We do this even in the church. “Hey, how are you?” “I’m fine, how are you.” This is exchanged a million times throughout the world every day. But a million times over, we know nothing about others. 

What if we were truly authentic? What if we were open about our brokenness? (Just writing that scared me.) What if we came to church without a mask? Without the face we put on to be okay? What if when someone asked us how we are, we asked them if they had a second to hear about our awful week? What would happen if we were authentic? 

I think I’d have a lot more people praying for me. Sending me a text saying they love me. A support system. Even accountability. 

We are broken. Every single one of us. Like the picture above, we have sharp edges, gaps that need to filled, pieces of ourselves everywhere.

And we should not be ashamed of that.