Long Bill

 "It is much easier to act like a Christian than it is to REACT like one. BUT it's our reactions that reveal what's really in our hearts."

Yesterday Peanut and I participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count for the first time.

We downloaded an app that would look at a picture of a bird we took and help us identify it.

Other than the Northern Cardinal, I could not identify any bird by name before yesterday.

With the rain and fog, and the status of my desperately needing to be replaced windows, getting good pictures was very difficult.

It seems that many birds look like other birds. And within a type of bird, there are multiple specific names.

As I was trying to figure out if I had a Downy or Hairy Woodpecker on my front porch, I realized that it's the subtle things that differentiate between birds.

It's the subtle things that give them their names.

In the case of those two woodpeckers, the difference is the length of it's bill. Otherwise, they are identical.

I realized that I spent the first 40 years of my life trying to hide that which makes me different.

Trying not to let my long bill stand out.

I think it's normal to want to fit in. To be liked. To be accepted.

The thing is I rarely fit in.

I'm in the percentage folks that you couldn't pay money to do high school again. I did not find my people in high school.

I did not find my people in the years I spent teaching full time. Found some really wonderful people. But not my people.

There's nothing to make you feel like you've been transported back to high school like the years you spend as a mom of a preschooler. In fact, it may be on the top five list of the reasons why Peanut never went to preschool. I could not be a preschooler's mother again.

Oddly it wasn't until I quit pretending to have it all together, that I finally met my people. Or perhaps that I finally felt deeply connected to my people.

When I said "I have a long bill. It's who I am."

Time and time again, I find it's when I bare my broken that I find myself the most accepted.

Perhaps if I had not spent the first 40 years pretending to have a short bill, the walk would have gone differently.

Mama Warriors, it's your subtle differences (or maybe not so subtle differences) that make you uniquely you.

It's what your people SHOULD love the most about you.

We don't love people in despite of their differences.

We authentically love people because of their differences.

Stick your long bill out.

Your people will be the people who love you for it.