I am a Child of God

I considered August 2012 to be my month of enlightening. It seemed like each week another layer was peeled in my self-discovery process. With each week, a new level of confidence was experienced. And with that confidence, happiness ensued. It was such an amazing journey to live! I felt alive, I felt deliberate, I felt loved in a way that can only come from within when one deems themselves lovable just the way they are without apology.
And here we are a year out from that beloved August. I've thought often about what I've learned in this year, what are some of the bullet points that highlight the lessons, etc. Although there are many, there is a specific frontrunner in my mind.
From a little girl, I grew up singing the popular LDS primary song, "I am a Child of God." I don't think I ever questioned my relationship to God. I knew I was His daughter, I knew He was my Heavenly Father. I felt His love during my highs and equally during my lowest lows. I knew I was His daughter when I was making good decisions and that knowledge never drifted when I was making very deliberate bad decisions. I never questioned the relationship and I never questioned whether or not God was doing His part.
The part of the relationship that always held me back was me.  I was always disappointing. I wasn't being the kind of mom I should be. Or daughter. Or Mormon. Or anything else. Simply put, I was never good enough.
I wasn't fitting in the mold that I, personally, had formed as to what exactly a successful Child of God was. Maybe I thought an acceptable child of God was someone who suppressed more of their desires to travel, who suppressed their passions for playing tennis and writing in order to fulfill the higher responsibility of 24/7 mothering, who was around negative influences all in the name of "loving thy neighbor", who would rather not stick up for herself just for the sake of avoiding an argument. 
I had created this mold that I absolutely did not fit into and a mold that was contrary to my innate way of being. In the previous couple of years, I had been giving into more of those natural ambitions, but wondered if "being myself" was coming at the high price of not being the child of God I was supposed to be. So I was always fighting against myself- it was a battle between being what I deemed a good child of God or betraying my heart.
No wonder I was always failing. After all, who gave me my heart? Who speaks to me through my heart?
In this past year, I'm accepting that I'm a unique child of God. That we're all unique. "A Child of God" is not a cookie cutter, a mold, or a generic expectation. I've learned and am still learning to give my heart a lot more validation. Instead of shutting down the ideas and passions and feelings that are fed to me through that vessel, I am learning to listen, accept, and own them. It's been a big swing and has taken a big leap of faith. In trying to figure out how to validate all the ideas, passions, and feelings, I've probably gone a little overboard- I had 17 getaways in the year 2013 before we moved to Texas at the end of July! I'm experimenting with this new way of living, with this liberation of shedding false expectations, and I'm sure it's going to take some tweaking before I find the perfect balance.
It's still a conscious monologue I have with myself, but in accepting I'm a unique child of God, I'm accepting that I AM enough. Just the way I am. And that passions, feelings, and ambition are put in my heart from the Being that knows me the best and loves me the most. That it's more than okay to follow them. In fact, that is the key to my happiness and more so, the key to fulfilling the very specific niche in this life that was created for me and only me. No one can do the job or fulfill the role that was meant for me...except me. So I need to listen and be in tune with that heart and rejoice in the fact that, no this isn't disappointing to God, but rather the highest way to honor my role as His daughter.

Cheers to August and being the best YOU that you can be!