Chapter 2 - Who Do You Think You Are???

Sometimes we forget to stop and smell the flowers. That may mean literally or maybe just figuratively. But, really, what makes you happy? Is it when you get to go shopping at the mall with your friends? Getting a manicure/pedicure? A day at your favorite amusement park? When that cute boy likes you back? Maybe you’re like me and nothing makes your heart smile bigger then when you have some Wendy’s French fries to dip into your Wendy’s frosty? There are so many things/people/places that make us happy. In this chapter we are going to be discussing what “makes us tick”. What is getting us up in the morning? My prayer is that you will finish this chapter with a honest glimpse of who you are and what excites you.

If money, time, age, other’s opinions, or perhaps you didn’t get in the way, what would be your greatest hope and dream? Is it to be a doctor, a cosmetologist, an actor, a teacher, a dancer, a mom, or maybe the next American Idol? Have you thought about the fact that you are the most powerful person in that thought process? You are the one that can execute what may be your greatest desires for yourself on this earth, whether that be reaching for the stars or just settling with a life less desirable. My all time favorite speaker is Louie Giglio. He once said a prayer that has forever stuck with me. He prayed, “God cause us to dream dreams as big as you are, and pray prayers as big as you are. Do not let us belittle you in anyway”. That is out of control convicting to me. I don’t know about you, but I know that I tend to pray prayers and dream dreams that I could see happening on my own doing. It is rare that I pray prayers that can only come to be with the help and doing of God’s work in my life. That prayer is actually one of the reasons that I finally started writing this book. In my personal life when I think about that prayer I ask myself, what is my deepest longing? If I answer that question honestly, it’s to write books to the lives that inspire me most, and to travel and meet those girls all over the world that have so much to offer but have not yet realized it. We are definitely on this journey together.

So, let me ask you again. What makes you happy? What are your greatest dreams? Think about those questions as though there are no obstacles. When you come to terms with the answers to those questions, start praying those prayers that are AS BIG AS God and start dreaming those dreams that are AS BIG AS God., and please remember DO NOT BELITTLE GOD, remember who you’re talking to!

Now comes the hard question, if you had a adequate view of God’s heart for you would your answers have been different? What if I told you that God knew you before you were born, or that He knows the number of hairs on your

head? What if I told you that the creator of this universe is on a constant pursuit of you? Well, it is all true! You have a God who is so in love with you that the idea of you settling breaks his heart. He knows you, He loves you, and He calls you by name! What amazing news!! The creator of the universe, the most famous since the beginning of time wants a relationship with you! I don’t know about you, but that gets me excited! It makes me realize that life is too short to dream dreams that don’t involve my creator. If you don’t believe me, let’s check out Psalm 139 and see what Our creator has to say about us.

“O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar, you discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all of my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem in – behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.”

Do you see that He KNOWS you? That may be scary to a lot of you because you don’t want him to know your secret thoughts, longings, or actions. But what is so awesome is that He does and yet, this is His opinion of you.

“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

How amazing is that! He sees it all. He sees our lying, our gossip, our drinking, our smoking, our cutting, our selfishness, our eating disorders, our disobedience, and our sex lives and still says we are fearfully and wonderfully made! There is hope, girls! Don’t let Satan come in and lie to you and tell you that there isn’t. God sees all our junk and pain and still chooses to love us and have a relationship with us. Show me a guy that even compares! I will save you the time, there isn’t one! You will never find a boyfriend or even a husband that even comes close to the unconditional love, grace, and forgiveness that Christ offers us.

I challenge you to go back and think about at the beginning of this chapter when you were thinking about what makes you happy and what your hopes are for the future, and really ask yourself if you have God’s view of yourself or maybe your view of yourself. Depending on how you answer that will make a very huge impact on how you live your life. Try to put a little bit more trust in God and a little bit less trust in yourself and see what happens.

I always get lost! I am so bad that I literally get lost in malls, lose my car in parking lots, and I don’t fully understand which directions are East, West, North, and South. My brain just doesn’t get it. Mapquest and the GPS on my phone are my best friends. If you have never used Mapquest, basically you put in your address that you are leaving from and then the address that you are going to and than you get directions. Well, I used to have the horrible habit of printing out the directions and then not following them and ended up still getting lost. The trip ended up taking 3X as long as it would have if I would have just stuck with Mapquest. What I do is I think I know better. For some reason a turn wont make sense to me so Ill go the opposite way cause I think that I know better. Right in the middle of driving around aimlessly I say to myself, “Elizabeth when are you going to learn? If you would have just stuck with the map you would be there by now”. Eventually I get to where I set out to go, but by the time I get there I am tired and frustrated. I think that so many times this is how we live our lives. We think we know what we need when we need it. What we forget is that there is the Bible that has been written to guide us and help us in life. The human in us has to learn it the hard way. If I would just learn to fully trust God and trust myself a lot less, this journey called life would be a lot easier. I’m not saying that life will always be easier, but doing what we know to be right will help us avoid a lot of wasted time and obstacles cause God knows what we need, when we need it.

God loves us. He is not some fun-sucker that wants our lives to be miserable. He wants good for us. He wants joy for us. He wants us to live to our fullest potential. In Jeremiah 29 He talks about having plans for us. His plans are to harm us, but to give us so much hope and an amazing future. It then goes on to say that the only way we are going to know what that future is for us, is to seek God with ALL of our heart. It will be revealed but we have to ask Him and seek Him.