InsideOut Girls: Living For Real For Christ

{by Hailey Sadler}

Fake things drive me crazy. Fake smiles. Fake nails. Fake sales where everything is 90% off except the one thing you want to buy. Fake flowers, which always trick me. [I do like costume jewelry…which is technically fake jewels…. but hey, even then the real thing is better!] The worst, though, has to be superficiality in regards to the Church. There is just something sickening about faking what should be so real. It makes me think of  Revelations 3:16, “Because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of My mouth.” I know for me, I want it to be either hot or cold, either totally for real or not at all. No lukewarm, in between, or pretending about it. Why is it, then, that this fakeness is so prevalent among Christian girls? I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve come to conclude that there are basically two types:

First, there is the Inside Girl. The Inside Girl is a Christian, and usually from a Christian family. But apart from the cross necklace around her neck, she walks, talks, acts, dresses, and lives exactly like her typical worldly counterpart… or at least she tries to. She cares a lot about being accepted and cool among her peers. The Inside Girl’s inner transformation has had no outward translation. Her inner life with Christ carefully does not touch the outside of her life, at least not in ways that would make her different or stand out.  

The Outside Girl is the complete opposite. For her, it is all on the outside. She is all leafy foliage and no root. The Outside Girl has a life that looks great and Godly; she knows all the “Christianspeak”, she signs her emails “joyfully His” and is probably involved in some sort of ministry. But there is no real joy in that “joyfully His”. Something is missing. She has chosen the “better part” with Mary of Luke 10:38-42 but in her heart of hearts, she doesn’t believe it is truly better. Secretly, she envies her worldly counterparts and the lives they “get” to live.

 Are you either of these girls? Both are the extremes, but do you recognize either attitude in yourself? I know I have tried elements of both at different times in my life and if you haven’t found this out already, I’ll let you in on a secret: it doesn’t work. Not really. Not if you want it to be authentic at least. It will only end up leaving you empty, unsatisfied, searching for something more. The ones who are totally and completely for real for Christ are InsideOut Girls. I have known a few. I hope you may find some of them in the pages of this blog. These girls are not always white-hot for Christ; like most people, they move constantly between these poles... being sometimes hot, sometimes, cold, sometimes lukewarm. What makes InsideOut Girls different isn't that they are consistently perfect specimens of what it means to live for Christ for real. What makes them different is that they are wholly honest and wholly unashamed.They may not be the ones who seem the most “spiritual” at first, but there is something about them that is different, something dynamic that draws you to them and makes you want whatever it is they have. They are who I want to be. They are living their lives from the inside out.

I hope you’ll join us here on our journey towards becoming InsideOut Girls who live for Christ for real in every area of our lives. It would be cliche and probably an exaggeration to say this blog will change our lives, but hopefully it will bring us all a little closer to the One who is our Goal. Because He can change our lives. And I can tell you one thing it won’t be. It won’t be fake.

Basically, if you want to smell the flowers I promise they’ll be real.