Taking back the Kelly-ness

So we have this friend, Mitchell, who is.....well, he's fun.  About 5 years younger than us, and he is still enjoying being young and carefree.  Single, just got a new Mustang, plays video games (a lot) and loves superheroes.  Great guy, and he keeps my husband feeling young :).  Anyway, I love him like a brother, and he treats me like a sister.  He has coined the term "Kelly-ness" to describe the awesomeness that is me.  Kind of a running joke between us.  So I started thinking about what exactly that is, or may be.  What does it look like, and just how awesome is it?

Well, I wasn't too happy with what I discovered.  I've lost my Kelly-ness, and, sadly, it was long before Mitchell ever knew me.  You see, I'm coming to terms with some hard truths.  I am not happy with who I have become, why I have let myself become this way, and the things I have tried to do to make myself feel better about it.  This is probably going to be a little different than previous posts in that I usually write from a place of humor.  Don't pity me, laugh with me!  That's my motto.  But today I need to dig a little deeper.

Around the end of my junior year I had some really crappy stuff happen.  I really don't want to broadcast details all over cyberspace (or, in my case, probably cybervillage), but just know that it was not a happy time.  My view of myself became very skewed, and without what I thought I needed from home (hindsight's 20/20), I didn't handle it well.  I swallowed a lot of my problems, and secretly rebelled against everything I knew to be true and good.  And when a girl doesn't respect herself, no one else does either.  I began to flounder, knowing I needed to get back to God, but not really knowing how, or what it even looked like.  It seemed that even the ways I sought God failed me.  My youth group, guys I dated who "claimed" to be really great Christians, everything.  I fell deeper and deeper.  in college, I thought I had it figured out, and branched out to try to find myself again in a new light.  Tragedy again.  I found myself in an eerily similar situation as I had a few years earlier, and it caused me to shut down completely.  I left school, had to move home for medical complications of said situation, and things went from bad to worse.  I lapsed back into depression, which manifested in terrible panic attacks at very inopportune times, like driving down the highway.  I was diagnosed, at 20 years old and a healthy weight, of high blood pressure.  And I started putting on weight.  A lot of weight.  My Kelly-ness was gone.

I told God I didn't ever want to date again.  I really, really, didn't want a husband.  Please, God, just keep them away from me.  I was too ashamed, too broken, too baggage-laden to even think about the transparency it would take to have a meaningful relationship.  He had other plans,  and sent me Derrell, my husband.  And while I felt God's forgiveness and acceptance at that time, I was sooooo just scratching the surface.  I had only let that realization, that grace, that love, go so deep into my life.

And then I lost a good deal of my vision and my ability to drive.  Wow.  That sentence doesn't even begin to describe how my life has changed because of Stargardt's Disease.  That is a whole other "laughter through tears" post for a later day.  Just know I have been holding onto a lot of anger because of it.  More weight, more health problems, less Kelly-ness.  Blah, blah, blah, and yes, I would like some cheese now.

So my great realization came, my Biggest Loser moment, if you will, not too long ago.  God has used an awesome book, Made to Crave, and a group of women at my church to bring me to it.  No one statement, no one golden moment, but a slow realization that I am so covered in hurt and anger and, well, in fat, that I cannot even begin to recognize, much less let shine, who God created me to be.  While I have spent thousands of dollars on therapy and weight-loss projects and self-help and thousands of hours in prayer and retreat and altar calls trying to fix what is broken, I have missed the big picture.  I have been waiting on God to "fix" me, but I haven't opened myself up, physically or emotionally, to let Him do it.  The other night I was curling up into my same-old, comfortable sleep position, and realized it felt different.  Different because and inch or two of fat was missing.  It wasn't as comforting, somehow, without the squishy fat there.  It hit me.  How much more of what I have done to myself physically is there because I feel I need it to cover and comfort me?  If it is somehow sickly comforting to me physically, how much more so does it allow for an emotional barrier, and spiritual wall?  The thought of actually losing all this weight, of not sitting with my arms crossed over my pregnant-appearing belly, of not having that physical barrier between me and other people, between me and my husband, actually frightened me tremendously.  Vulnerability is a very scary thing.  And what happens when I don't have that weight to cause that distance between me and God?  when I actually cleanse the temple and allow Him in, fully?  Not to say AT ALL that one cannot be overweight and close to God.  Not at all!  But for me personally, my weight, or abundance thereof, is a rebellion against God.  I believe I haven't WANTED Him that close, so I have sabotaged my temple to keep Him at a safe distance.  The thought of being completely open for His presence, of allowing Him to get rid of all my junk, even my weight, scares the poo out of me.  But I refuse to let that be me anymore.  I've already stepped out of the boat, and I have to walk on water now, to my Jesus.  I can't get back in.

And it's not just the weight that's changing.  I allowed my dear friend Lynde to see my trash.  Literally.  To come inside my house and help me begin the process of cleaning out my house.  How embarrassing, how freeing.  And I tell you, it feels good.  It has helped my marriage, my mood, my stress level has decreased, it's great.

I have a taste of the Kelly-ness.  I think I know what I'm missing.  It's the feeling I have after I burn 919 calories in 45 minutes of RPM at the gym, and I know that I could have never done it on my own, but with God's help and the ribbing of great instructors I WAS able to accomplish it, and it feels GREAT!  It's the feeling of going to bed knowing that I did not put things into my body today that negate God's purpose for my life.  I cannot serve Him fully if I succomb to my own temptations with food.  It's the feeling that, room by room, my house is getting in order, and the daily upkeep of it leaves my feeling accomplished and light-hearted.  This is just the beginning.  True Kelly-ness is limitless.  I don't know what it will fully look like, or when it will come (probably not in this life), but I'm high on the idea of it.  Being the Kelly God intended me to be.  Not the Kelly that took the reins herself and messed it up.  Not the Kelly that the world has beaten down with illness and experience.  Not the Kelly who hides from God's will under layers of guilt and fat.  Nope.  Look out world, I'm getting my Kelly-ness back.  And it looks beautiful.