A personal thread today. I write it without a whit of whininess. I’ve been so blessed and graced by God to get to do what I do and had tons of encouragement but this is hugely on my mind. It’s a social media world so it will happen to many others. This is just in case it helps:

Yesterday LifeWay posted a little clip of me teaching. It was from years ago so, of course, it looks very dated. But the word’s not dated thankfully. It was from the study Breaking Free, a life message to me. I could talk about freedom in Christ 3X a week & never lose my passion.

I watched it over and over. First of all, because I was getting a word from it. LOL. Second of all, because I was full on me. I mean full on, full out, unhindered me. Zero self consciousness. Just teaching with the passion God gave me to see people freed up in Jesus. I wondered->

how differently I might’ve taught that in the last few years. I would not have changed my message but I guarantee you I’d have toned down my big personality because it would’ve come this side of being mocked & imitated & made fun of publicly so many times. (I know. Cue violins.)

Now, mind you, I needed a lot of change. I always need changing. I pray on an ongoing basis for God to make me a better teacher. I’ve gotten things wrong & said things in ways that implied more than I meant. I’m a woman of many words &, therefore, of much folly. But I realized->

the bondage that had resulted from it. I realized how self-conscious all the ridicule had made me & how often in the last years I wouldn’t put that week’s TV clip on Twitter because, if I was unhindered, “they’d” call it unhinged. I’d be crazy eyes. They’d freeze it & post it.->

Here’s the thing. I have big eyes. LOL. You can take up with God. I have a big nose, too. Well, add to that big hair & a big mouth. I know, I know. I am the easiest target on earth. But I just want to go on record, I do mean in writing so I’m held accountable: I’m done with that.

I’m done with trying to tone down my Baptist Pentecostal Bible pounding bleached blonde self to keep people from mocking me whom toning down never slowed down. Anyway, think what a gift I give them. I’ll give it to them as a present. Tie a bow on it. Moral of the story: we need->

critics. 100%. God has used so many people to answer my ongoing prayer to be a better teacher. But what we don’t need is to let rude people put us in bondage where we serve self-consciously and, thereby, quench the Spirit. We do not need that. I’ll keep changing. I need changing.

But today, if it’s all the same to you, I’m breaking free.