Two weeks ago, on my way to work, I heard a couple commercials on the radio advertising a place for women to go to have laser hair removal, body sculpting, & injections done. Their motto is to “be ideal.” All of a sudden, in hearing it, I just became so angry & frustrated. Our society has a way of telling people they aren’t good enough as they are. They aren’t thin enough, their hair isn’t right, their clothes aren’t right. Society tells people they have to fit into this perfect little, ideal cookie-cutter lifestyle- graduate high school, go to college, get married, have kids, buy a house, have a white picket fence. They tell us we have to be “ideal.” Well…what does that mean? “Ideal” is someone else’s IDEA of how things are supposed to be, how we’re supposed to look, behave, & live. Why should I be “ideal”? What’s wrong with the way I am & look today? If God asks me to live beyond “average,” “normal,” or “ideal”, why should I think I need anyone’s permission to do so?

Well, guess what, I don’t WANT to be ideal! I don’t WANT to be normal. I don’t want to fit someone else’s cookie-cutter expectations. I want to be ME. I don’t care what other people think about my way of life. I don’t care what people think of the fact that I don’t wear make-up. I don’t care what people think of the fact that I don’t wear name-brand clothes. If God calls me to pick up & move somewhere for the sake of spreading the gospel, I don’t want to worry about what others will think. I don’t give a hoot because the ONLY people’s opinions that matter are God’s, my husband’s, & my own. When I get to the end my life, I won’t be answering to the general population about how I lived, I will be answering to God. I don’t want to be average or normal…because that just seems so boring.

I feel like I’ve always kind of been like this…never quite fitting in the mold of society. I tried a few times…I tried to fit in with the general expectation of society, but I don’t think it was really ever for me because I always had to change who I was as a person to do it & I always found myself broken & dismayed. I always have been & probably always will be the girl who didn’t hang back, worry about her hair or nails. I was the girl that ran along for the adventure & that’s what I want my life to be- an adventure. When I die, I want to die knowing I made an impact on this world for the Lord & I did it while staying true to Him & true to myself. I want a MEANINGFUL life, not an “ideal” one.

I refuse to be ideal. If my life doesn’t look how society expects, so be it. If I don’t look how society expects, so be it. If I live in a way that glorifies the Lord but offends the world, so be it. If I go against the “ideal,” so be it. I don’t expect it to be easy or comfortable, but I will live my life for the glory of the Lord & I will live it to the fullest.

So…here’s to living for the Lord, not fitting into the cookie-cutter life, living with adventure, & refusing to be “ideal,’ because as Jonathon from Stranger Things so eloquently put it…

“Nobody normal ever accomplished anything meaningful in this world.”

Be blessed, friends.