Secret Identity

Piggybacking on yesterday's blog, the opening scene of The Incredibles starts with Mr. Incredible being interviewed and asked the question "Do you have a secret identity?" Mr. Incredible proceeds to answer "Every super hero has a secret identity. I don't know a single one who doesn't. Who wants the pressure of being super all the time?"

I would ask you the same question this morning. Do YOU have a secret identity?

I had one and it served me fairly well for awhile. But the pressure of maintaining that identity was way too hard. We may not call ourselves superhero's but we often think we are. We think we are invincible and that we have to save the world by any means necessary but thankfully that is not reality. Let me tell you a little about my secret identity. I walked around like everything was great all of the time. I always had a smile on my face. I was most always upbeat and laughing. Now, if you know me now, you may be thinking, "Natalie, that IS you!". Well, you are correct. It IS me...NOW.

Before I dealt with the pain of my past, it was all just a secret identity, a mask I would put on in the morning before I left the house just as surely as most women put on makeup. I would only take the mask off at night, in the dark, in my bed as I would cry myself to sleep at night. It was very hard to keep up the charade and the facade of who I was pretending to be. The pressure became too great and I wanted to live in the truth of who I was but also who I could become.

I was a very depressed individual but in the church world, "The joy of the Lord is your strength"(Nehemiah 8:10) and you can't be sad or have a down day...which isn't truth but it was what I was told in my church and was led to believe. While "the joy of the Lord IS your strength" (Neh 8:10), depression is a real thing and needs to be dealt with, not just skimmed over. Your issue may not be depression, it may be something else but the reality is that scripture says "The truth shall set you free" (John 8:32). Now, I am not a Bible scholar and I don't claim to be but what I have come to understand this scripture to mean is that just a knowledge of the truth won't set you free but rather what you do with that truth. Let me give you an example. I know that eating healthy and working out is good for me which is a great piece of knowledge. However, if I don't do anything with that knowledge, that doesn't mean that eating healthy and working out are not truth. It means I haven't done anything with the knowledge that I received that can help set me free. Make sense?

Freedom came for me when I acknowledged that I had a secret identity and that the pressure of having it was far too great. As I accepted this fact, I was able to deal with the true Natalie, the depressed and wounded Natalie, and to get help and healing for my soul. In doing so, the true Natalie has been healed and made whole and the joy that I pretended to have is now real and deep and true. I no longer have a secret identity. I am free to be me! I am as authentic and transparent as I can be. Yes, I have joy but I still have pain from time to time. Yes, I strive to be like Jesus every day but I still screw up. But no matter what, in the words of Popeye, "I yam what I yam and that's all that I yam!" My prayer is that you too will be able to say this soon!