Standing there on the sidelines I was impressed with how the others were playing. It seemed like they had superpowers, as though they were endued with some special something that set them apart for success.

Counting numbers, measuring metrics, I just never seemed to tally up to my own expectations.

It was heartbreaking. Then it all fell apart…

Despite my best efforts and desperate prayers, the life I had constructed tumbled down around me and I was left floundering in my own failure and a deep and boggy slough of low self-esteem.

Scrambling in the remnants I was looking for something I had lost. Confidence for one, but no, it was more fundamental than that.

Enter a parade of characters into the pantomime of life, and a crowd shouting, “He over there!”, “He’s behind you!”

“This is who you are, this is what you should be, this is how you should think.”

Finally I had sense enough to cancel the noise, get into the prayer booth and switch off the voices.

“Lord, who am I?”

You are a writer. And I have called you to provoke people to pursuit and to purity.”

Pursuit of God.

Pursuit of His call and anointing (for YOUR life, not mine).

Purity of motive.

Purity of vision.

Purity of message and commitment to the King.

But the funny thing is, this conversation was borne from frustration with who I am. Intense. Unyielding. Provocative and contentious at times.

Why am I like this?” I lamented.

“Because I made you that way. I like you that way.”

Papa knows best, and he understands what He requires to fulfil His purposes in and through your unique and perfectly chiselled and charred personality.

All the engine needed was direction.

For me it was writing.

I’d been waiting for myself to catch up all along.

Every experience and every heartbreak spills into the pages I fill.

Every lesson and learning, every leaning of my heart into the things that make me feel alive.

All of them are essential ingredients making up the Marmite man that I am.

Love me or hate me. Like me or despise me. Read me or don’t.

I have discovered something special, something I never want to lose ever again.

Myself.

YOU are the person you have been waiting for all along.

And just in case you don’t realise it yet, YOU ARE AWESOME!