When Being You is Bold

I am so pleased to welcome my friend Shauna Wallace to the #BeBoldGirl series. Shauna and I met at She Speaks 2014. In fact, Shauna was my prayer partner for She Speaks. We have become good friends and I was so happy to be able to give her a hug at the conference this year.

When I think of being bold, I think of Hebrews 4:16:

Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

The phrase come boldly has always conjured up images of approaching God with assurance and over-the-top confidence, and that would be an accurate picture! But what if I don’t feel confident or bold? What then?

When it comes to gleaning a deeper understating of scripture, I’m a Greek word geek! So I looked up boldly and discovered it also means hiding nothing and speaking freely. Plainly. Without comparison.

Being you.

Boldly you.

Several years ago, that was the worst thing someone could say to me. I hated me! I’d rather be you, because when I compared my insides to your outsides, you were a much better option!

To be me would mean owning my flaws, shortcomings, bad choices, imperfections, idiosyncrasies, weaknesses, hurts, unforgiveness, bitterness and so on (and there was a lot of so on!). In owning it, I’d be accountable to do something about it, like get honest, feel pain, deal with hurt and regret. It was easier to spend my energy on you – comparing myself, being jealous and feeling sorry for myself that I wasn’t you.

I couldn’t be me, because I was afraid if you really knew me, you would reject me. I didn’t think I could handle that, because what you thought of me defined my worth.

I lived ensnared in the trap of comparison.

Comparing kills the soul. It lies to us. Says we’re not good enough.

Even in our relationship with God.

But for me, when the pain of maintaining a perfect façade became lonelier and more painful than the prospect of breaking down the walls and getting real, I encountered the tender faithfulness of a loving God who made me in His image.

I learned to come boldly. Not in the confident and demanding sense, but in the loved, accepted and humbled sense. Me. All of me. The good, the bad and the ugly. And I talked to Him. Plainly. As me, not trying to be who I thought He wanted me to be. As I do, His truth that has been head knowledge only is now becoming heart knowledge, as well. Especially this:

For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them. How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! (Psalm 139:13-17 NKJV)

No matter who we are, what we’ve done, what’s been done to us, who or where we come from, THIS IS TRUTH. We are His workmanship, fearfully and wonderfully made.

Our substance precedes our physical formation, so our worth has nothing to do with our outsides and boldness has nothing to do with how we feel about ourselves on the inside!

I was made in secret to be me, not you.

Boldly me.

As we get our eyes off each other and onto God and His truth, we can boldly be who He skillfully wrought us to be for His purpose and good works. We can come plainly before Him, all masks removed. All comparisons set aside. And we can obtain mercy and find grace to help in our time of need.

To come boldly to the throne of grace is a function of position not emotion – a Father’s invitation to His creation to be our satisfaction.

Oh friend, come boldly to His throne.

No comparison. Hiding nothing.

Boldly be who God made you to be not just what others can see.

Boldly be who God made you to be not just what others can see. #BeBoldGirl

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Early in life, Shauna Wallace became an expert at learning things the hard way! In her thirties, she started approaching God’s word as a way of life and experiencing His faithfulness as a matter of fact. Now, she hopes her hard lessons can become another’s blessings! By sharing scriptural truths through the lens of her life story, she longs to see women love Jesus more, draw nearer, go deeper, believe bigger and live freer! Wife to James and Mama to four high school and adult children plus a “son-in-love,” home is Shauna’s happy place. There you’ll find her juggling her many hats, including home schooling and helping out with the family-owned custom home building business, all while setting aside the wee hours of the day to be in God’s presence, study her Bible and write. Her newest Bible study 30 Days to Living a God Life not Just a Good Life for individual and group study is now available on amazon.com. You can follow her blog and learn more about her other books at shaunawallace.com.

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