I Am

I am a grifter. A con-artist, a snake-oil salesman. I am skilled in sleight of hand. I’m a fake, a fraud, a facade of success and spirituality. I am smoke and mirrors. Stage make-up and special effects. Trap doors and tele-prompters.
I am a natural beauty born of Crest White Strips, five years of braces, $100 highlights, sixteen-hour foundation and triple action thickening/curling/lengthening mascara, extended wear lip gloss, contact lenses and space age foundational garments.
I am a quoter of scriptures I have heard and never studied. I am a raiser of hands filled with shame. I am a singer of praise with unclean lips. I am a teacher of lessons I do not live.
I am a nurse in need of healing.
I am a parent who is really a child.
I am a giver of advice who needs a counselor. I am a confidant speaker with low self-esteem. I am a champion of forgiveness and angry for no reason.
I am intelligent and illogical. I am a specialist in psychiatry and depressed. I am a student of reason and unreasonable.
I am loved and lonely. I am middle aged and wracked with teenage angst. I am unworthy and trying to convince you I’m holy.
I am a large squeezed into a medium who wants to be a small.
I am a writer with nothing to write. I am a giver with nothing to give and a hoarder with treasures I won’t share.
I want to help and I don’t want to be bothered. I am guilty and I am judgmental.
I wish I were invisible. I long for applause. I am humble and I want credit.
I hope you don’t really know me. I wish someone really knew me.
I am less than I appear and more than meets the eye.
I am redeemed.

Isaiah 43:1
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.