I am more...

Living in truth.

Slowly but surely this has become a desperate place I needed to be. I think many of us live in a reality where we feel that we cannot be who we really are. Maybe we have put on a mask to protect ourselves because of past pains, traumas and situations. Maybe the damage of middle and high school bullying made us feel so small and so unworthy of ourselves, we built a new version. A fake version. No matter what the story, there comes a point where it becomes exhausting to keep up the act, the facade. Not being who you know you are is living in a lie. Whether it is an intentional one or something that has started to become apparent as you heal, grow and start to become comfortable in yourself, it no longer is a facade that you want to be in. Yet as you try to shed the fake skin of years past, you find yourself in a battle of pulling it off and kind of pulling it back on.

My name is Adriane. I am more than just the wife of Aaron and the mom of Kaleb and Michael. I am more than just the roles I have within my family and more than the roles I have within my friendships. Above all of these things I am a daughter of the King. This was a role I had no real concept of as I went from child to teen to adult...I knew there was a God and I had a lot of knowledge of Him, but I did not have a personal relationship with Him.

Maybe if I did, I would have not lost myself in the things that happened to me throughout that time of my life. In the traumas, the hardships, the middle and high school mistakes, teasing, bullying...I lost myself in a sea of negative thoughts and talk. I began to believe the lies and started to convince myself that those were the truths about myself. So I grew a facade. Sometimes I became the bully myself and that was something I really had to overcome. This didn't mean that I didn't have real relationships and that I never put my real self into who I was, but I buried so much of who I was in untruth's that it became lost.

Thankfully, I met an amazing man who has loved me and encouraged me and even in all our ups and downs, trials and tears, has stuck with me through a lot. I carried a lot of baggage into our relationship that was not easy and some has always lingered. I am thankful that in all my parenting fails, the over and over again fails, that my sons have had grace understanding and forgiveness and I hope that the person who so desperately was trying to come out of all of the facade can be a better mom to them now (even though that role is drastically different with them as adults) then I was before.

I say all this because I want to be true to as much of my background as I feel comfortable bringing out right now. Not because of shame, but more so because sometimes not everything needs to be said at once.

I have been a believer for many years, but it is really in the past few years that I started to really understand how much the things I said above has damaged my inner thoughts and made me believe so many lies about myself.

In Him, I am none of the lies. In Him, I am wholly accepted, loved, worthy, beautiful, created in His image and meant to be a light in this dark world. What all that means has been a beautiful unwrapping process in understanding who and what I am, my purpose in this life and what I see when I look in the mirror.

Replacing the lies with His truth has been a process. Somedays I am really in a great place and some days the triggers creep up and I am not. One day at a time. One lie replaced with truth at a time and one more step into acceptance.

I am not a perfect person. I have a lot of growth and learning to do, but I am no longer ashamed of who I think He has for me to be. Above all, I know I am His. I am also a person with hopes and dreams. I am also Aaron's wife and the mom of Kaleb and Michael, a family member and a friend, but I am not defined by those to roles alone. I am defined by His Truth and His purpose for my life. I have been gifted with gifts and have the opportunity to use them. I am more than just the person you see.

Everyone in your life is more than the person you see. Everyone holds scars, wounds, traumas, pain. They have things that they fear to share because of judgement and misunderstanding. People are dealing with things that we cannot imagine.

To walk in His Truth means we need to be aware of others around us. Shine a light on them, for them. Bear each others burdens, offer forgiveness, hope, love...be more. Be better.