My balcony changed everything

It's hard to imagine ever leaving this balcony. And yet, in only a month I will.

This small platform has been my refuge throughout the past year. Fenced in by a wall of hearts, I found healing I never dreamed possible. My view was God's canvas for revealing himself and redefining love in my life.

Early mornings, just in time to watch the brilliant sunrise, momentarily cool in the summer, crisp and refreshing in the fall. Even buried under thick layers and bundled up tight in a blanket, I made it out here in the winter.

There's no better place to center, recharge or simply be. Those early mornings became my escape, setting the rhythm for my life to come, constantly showing me that there is more. Wooing me deeper into my relationship with God. Calling me toward my destiny. Speaking out my identity.

I came to know myself out here. The birds' songs and the way the sun makes even the dullest leaf glisten. The clear blue skies or the steady flow of sweet cotton candy clouds across them at dusk. The roar of a summer thunderstorms and the heavy rhythm of fierce raindrops piercing the earth. The mesmerizing snowflakes that every once and a while would fall with grace. This natural beauty brought peace and stillness. It cut through the anxiety and stress and brought me back to my own natural state of calm and content.

Stillness is incomparably powerful. With it you connect with yourself in an intimate way. It beckons a kind of authenticity that requires vulnerability, the breeding ground for self discovery.

In complete solitude, surrounded by remarkable beauty, I faced myself. Peeling off the masks, layer by layer, I was reacquainted with me. Untainted by life circumstance and non-conformed to expectation or desire. Out here, my soul was naked once again. Self-awareness or self-discovery couldn't come close to defining the significance of such an experience.

Our deepest desire as humans is none other than to be known. Deeply, intimately known for all we are and all we desire to become. That is innate in each of us and true whether we acknowledge the need or not. So what happens when you we don't really know ourselves? I think we settle for thinking we are "known" by people in our lives who've actually got us wrong. Who don't see into the depths of our hearts or the corners of our wildest dreams.

Without that naked image of our own souls, and with that intrinsic desire for known-ness, we believe them. If we are people pleasers who rely on external validation from the opinions of others, this only worsens. We want so desperately, subconscious as the desire may be, to experience the intimacy of being known that we allow ourselves to become who it is they "know" us to be.

It could be a parent, friend, boss, or lover. Anyone we are in relationship with. We start telling ourselves that because they know us so well, it must be true. That must be my character, even though it's not. That must be where I want to go, even though it's not even close. That must be who I was created to be or what I was born to do, even though it is so completely not.

People we love and respect have an incredible ability to speak into our lives. Without knowing our true selves, we risk masquerading through life as someone those around us think we are or should be.

If the desire to be known will never fade, which it clearly won't, we owe it to ourselves to be the first one to meet that longing for known-ness.

I came to know my true self out here on this balcony. And through that, I was able to develop a love for my authentic self. A love that allowed me to begin healing from past relational wounds. From my fear of marriage. From my need for external validation from male affection. From my addiction to busyness and performance.

For me, these many layers of healing occurred only because I came to know the real me, as God created me. He wooed me out here on this sunny yellow chair. He romanced me in a way that completely rewrote my false definition of love. Speaking words of affirmation, showing me glimpses of His heart, unfolding my identity as a daughter, surprising me with rainstorms, singing to me through the birds...

God loved me back to a place of believing in love again. But His kind of love. The unconditional, joy carrying, never destructive, always empowering kind of love that we were all created to know, give and receive.

Receiving His love out here in a place of serene solitude allowed me to follow Him into the depths of my own heart, come to know my true self, and offer that same kind of love back to myself.

And because of all that, I started to dream my own dreams again. I stepped into my actual identity and rediscovered my deepest passions. Knowing that I knew myself, what others had to say about it could no longer change my direction nor slow my speed.

Don't get me wrong, we all need community and there's absolutely no amount of self discovery that can replace that. We desperately need to experience intimacy in the form of being known and loved by others. But discovering my true self allowed me to meet my own intrinsic need to be known, developing in me an authentic love for myself, something that no amount of community could have given me.

This balcony was the safe-haven I needed to find the inner healing that would launch me toward my destiny. I'll never be the same because of the time I spent out here. And when it's time to leave it behind, I'll carry it's splendid solitude with me as I journey into the world, mask-less, in the direction of my own dreams.

Spend significant time alone with yourself in a peaceful place. Journal, meditate, pray, read, or just stare at the trees brushing the sky. Take off the masks and be with yourself in your own safe haven. I promise you will be transformed, and nothing in your life will ever be the same.