Nobody

Game of Thrones spoiler alert, but from the books, don't know if it applies the same to the series, and I think the series is past this point, but have been told you must warn people anyway.

Arya had to become nobody before she could really become anybody.  She made this choice, but let's be real, she had a pretty f'd up life up to that point.

I was just thinking about my time in churches.  For the most part, I was always nobody, or felt that I was.  Even when I was in a small group setting and leaders were saying "we want to get to know you. we want to hear your story." they never really did.  If I started to tell even a small piece of my truth, it was shut down pretty quickly.

And it is not even that my truth is that bad.  Yes there are bad parts.  The problem is twofold, as I see it.  First, I refuse to feel guilty and repentant for the bad and hard parts of my life that happened because of the abuses and tragedies I survived.  God knows the darkness I have walked through and has lead me into a place of life and light, and he isn't asking me to keep beating myself up over those things. I think there is something inherently wrong when a religion can only hear a person's truth when they are either beating themselves up with it, or that is is so completely healed it is like it never happened.  My survival and the things I learned and the dark that closes around me from time to to me will always be a part of who I am, and I have earned to right to never have to pretend again.

The other part of this is is significance.  Churches often talk about how each person is significant, but they seldom act that way.  If you are not in a leadership position and/or a large contributor, chances are you often feel invisible.  I was involved in a small group once where the leader said "We want everyone to get to know each other better, so each week for a while, we are going to ask a different person in the group to tell their story." The first week, the leader and his wife shared their stories, the week after that was the secondary leader and his wife.  Then they said something else had come up they felt like we needed to do, and that was the end of it.

One example, yeah.  Felt personal, yeah.  But I could tell so many stories, and they mostly seem small, even petty.  But when there are so many, they add up to "you are not significant."

I am nobody,  I am anybody.  I'm fine with that.  But I noticed the man behind the curtain.  I took the red pill.  I understand where the masks come from and the cost of putting one on.  I won't lie to myself again.  It is called integrity, and I'm worth it.