Every person longs for acceptance. We want to know we belong somewhere and fit in like pieces of a puzzle. This is why human beings have always sought community and solitary confinement is used as punishment for criminals.

When we don’t feel we quite measure up to the standard held in our families, our workplaces, our social circles, and even our churches, our first instinct is to walk away. The depression and anxiety that stems from deep insecurities lead us into isolation and suffocating interior darkness.

But God desires to love us into freedom. He created us with gifts, talents, and particular temperament that were meant to bless the world. Trying to navigate through a broken society and dealing with our own fallen humanity often makes it difficult to recognize our intrinsic value. Media advertising blares deceitful messages of simultaneous conformity and reckless abandonment.

It’s a challenge to walk the line between compassion and justice. We’re hard on ourselves and hard on each other. At the same time in regards to objective sin, sometimes we’re too forgiving and complacent walking down a dangerous road towards accepting terrible wrongs as normal and acceptable. But St. Teresa of Avila accurately defines humility as truth. If we want to be humble enough to grow authentic virtue, it is absolutely necessary for us to pray for the eyes of Jesus through which we will learn to see ourselves as He does.

What do we do that are “kingdom actions”? What thoughts do we think are “kingdom thoughts”? As I pray through my days, I’m trying to be more aware of the motivations and stirrings of my heart that manifest themselves in word and deed. A recent soul project I’ve undertaken is a greater movement toward authenticity because I can only contribute to the Kingdom of God the person God made me to be.

It’s taken some time to figure out who exactly that is, but I’ve gained great consolation in knowing that the “Me” that I give the world doesn’t have to be perfect. That’s a bit scary because I’m afraid of being judged for my faults and imperfections. Yet I find that even in the daily struggles, my heart is being refined and purified from attachments I didn’t even know were disordered. So while people may misunderstand me or form opinions about me based on the limited knowledge they have, I can still thank God for the hidden work He is doing within me that is taking root in my soul.

He loves me. He loves you, too. He loves each and every one of us so much that He shed His blood so that we might be saved from the hands of the enemy. The devil doesn’t want us to be real with ourselves and with each other. If he can’t get us to physically destroy our own lives, he will deceive us into creating a world of fabricated selves that look nothing like the image that God created us in.

The Lord desires us to be FULLY ALIVE…not the Walking Dead! May we wake up to the reality of God’s good graces and accept the gifts of the Holy Spirit that empower us reflect the presence of Jesus in our world.

“We will be the happiest people in the world if we belong to God, if we place ourselves at his disposal, if we let him use us as he pleases. To be this happy, we must belong to Jesus fully without reservation. He alone is worthy of our love and our total surrender. Once we really belong to him then he is free to use us, to do with us whatever he pleases.”

— Bl. Mother Teresa of Calcutta