You are who you have been your entire life.
I am also who I have been my entire life.
We each have always been just who we have been for as long as we have been known.
So if we have been (as we have always been), then why would we ever pretend to be something or someone we are not?

When I was a child, we lived in Indiana, and while there, I began to discover and to find the real me.

My mom helped me reach this truth.

Churches sit everywhere in the state where I now live, but back then (when I was a child), we had to drive a full hour to go to church.  So every Sunday morning, mom would turn on the TV in the small TV room and crank up the volume because she enjoyed the station that played the gospel music show.
See a white-frame house, out in the middle of the country, surrounded by fields of corn, beans, and cows; hear a house filled with the sounds of one gospel quartet followed by another, sense the house, bursting with sound, so loud that we could hear the music all the way upstairs to the bedrooms where my sister and I slept.  That’s how I remember my Sunday mornings. Then, once the family was ready, mom and dad would load us up in the car, and off we would go to the church–an hour’s drive from our home.
During the other six days, we did not venture as far, and mostly, we stayed home, around the farm, playing, helping, working, and growing up into the person we were to become.  When I was a child, we lived in a house with two living rooms—the TV room & the “fancy” living room.  That room (the fancy living room) was where we had a portrait of Jesus.  Yes, that’s right. We owned a large portrait of Jesus hanging above the fireplace, and we had furniture there, in front of the fireplace, in the “fancy living room.” 

That’s where I sat.
That’s where I found myself sitting every day, looking up at Jesus. 
That’s where I learned to be who God created me to be.

There is a Psalm of Thanksgiving we should pause to enjoy.

• See a little girl, one below sixth grade.
• See her sitting there, in the “fancy” living room.
• See her sitting there close to the fireplace (the one with the portrait of Jesus hanging above).
• See Me.
• Hear me ask, “Why not mommy?” If God can do anything, why won’t He make me a boy?”

It was pretty simple in this child’s mind.
God could do ANYTHING!!!
Mommy said so.
God could take something and make something into SOMETHING NEW.
So if God could, why didn’t He answer my request that I prayed for daily, while sitting there in the fancy living room, in front of the fireplace, and looking up toward the Jesus portrait?

• Why not, mommy.
• Why didn’t God make me a boy?
• Why won’t He make me a boy, now?

It was pretty simple in this child’s mind.
God could do ANYTHING!!!
Mommy said so.
God could take something and make something into SOMETHING NEW. Yes, in my mind, it was a simple request.

I played with my brother and his boy toys more than I played with my sister and her sister toys. 
I wore every pair of pants and every hand-me-down shirt my cousin passed down when he outgrew them, and I truly loved his clothes.
I ran shirtless across the open yard (for as long as mom allowed this flat-chested kid to run—shirtless and fancy-free).
I disliked hair bows and hair-fixing, barrettes, and ponytails.  My hair just was—there—& mostly my hair remained a tangled mess, as my mommy allowed me to play and run free.

“Why not mommy?”
Every day I asked her a simple question. & Every day, I sat there, looking at the portrait Jesus, and asking the question that filled this child’s mind, the request that I just knew He had the power to create.
I truly loved playing “boy” games with “boy” toys. I like football helmets, cap guns, riding bikes, and digging in the dirt. I liked me most whenever my childlike self was outside playing with my younger brother. Most definitely, I was created a girl, caught inside a boy-playing body. I even had a best friend, Ray, at Gilliam Elementary School, and Ray was my daily playmate at every recess. It was there, in fifth grade, where Ray taught me how to run fast and to play. 
At my 10th birthday party, mom allowed me to invite whomever, so still today, there’s a photo, yes, a photo of a line of boys, standing side-by-side….there beside me. And there is me, standing (right in the middle of the line of boys), enjoying my young life, not really understanding why God did not create me to be, the gender that seemed more me.

To this young child’s mind, it really was a pretty simple request.
God could do ANYTHING!!!
Mommy said so.
God could take something and make something old into SOMETHING NEW.

“Mommy, if God can do ANYTHING, then why won’t He make me a boy?
Mommy’s answer changed me.
Mommy’s answer shaped me to be who God created me to be.
Mommy’s answer reminds me (even still today) why mom remains my hero.
Why? The reason is just so simple: My mom answered my question, daily asked, giving me the answer that helped me look, NOT at Myself and what I questioned, what I seemed to want, way back then.

Mommy helped me take my eyes off me & Look AT GOD.

Mommy said to me, “Because God made you a girl.” These words, she spoke to me…..day after day after day…..Yes, every day I asked. Day after day after day…..as I sat there, looking up at the portrait of Jesus, trying to figure out why God made me to be a girl.

Thank you, mom, for being my mom, for raising me to keep my eyes upon Jesus.
Thank you, mom, for being my hero, for answering my question, over and over and over.
Thank you, mom, for speaking aloud God’s truth to me, yes, to the young, impressionable me. &
Thank You, God, for making ME just who YOU intended me to be.
Thank You, GOD…for revealing Yourself to me then, when I was so young.

Thank You, God, for saving my soul when I was a teen, for making me into the “new creature” YOU intended me to be.

Thank You, God, for Saving Me. Thank You, God, for Continuing (even today) Making Me Who You Want Me Be.