I am a people pleaser until I am not.

The first season my husband was a coach in Major League baseball, I didn’t feel I fit in very well. I didn’t have the designer bag, the fashionable heels, the large diamond ring, or the fancy car. I was a struggling mom trying to keep it all together. There were many days when I wouldn’t even go to the family section to sit because I didn’t have anything nice to wear. I felt that all eyes were on me, feeling sorry for me, judging me. I didn’t feel like I could size up to them and knew they were talking about me. I cried to my husband that I needed more, more clothes, more jewelry, more bags, and more shoes. The problem was and is, I am not a shopper. I did not know who designers were or what was fashionable. The other problem is we were PO’! We were so po’ we couldn’t afford the O-R. The big leagues were not what I thought they were going to be and I wasn’t fitting in.

As I look back now, I was trying to please others because of what I thought they wanted. The reality was they were some of the best people I had ever met. They were kind and loving and embraced me for who I was. They didn’t need anything from me or for me to own the things they did to fit in. I just needed to be me. The woman God created me to be. The woman who opens her arms and hugs. The woman who loves their children like they are her own. The woman who listens to their heart. The woman that God loves dearly and in return she loves others. The woman who listens to God’s guidance and obeys no matter what others will think. Or what I think they may think.

“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ,” Galatians 1: 10.

Are people judging us and expecting us to please them. Or are we putting that pressure squarely on our shoulders trying to carry what WE believe they need to be happy?

We fail. We fail to be what we think others need us to be even when we are striving to meet their approval. Why? Because we can never be someone God doesn’t intend us to be. We could act the act, walk the walk, talk the talk, but never be entirely that persona if we were made for something different.

In my younger years, I bought the clothes, wore the shoes, dangled the purse, wore the makeup, bought the items others were to fit in, and I failed. I failed God and myself.

Embrace who God has created you to be. Trying to fit into a mold you believe others need doesn’t allow you to be the servant of the Gospel. Surrender to Jesus and tap into His Spirit to fill you.

“I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God’s grace given me through the working of his power,” Ephesians 3:7.