Do you know how some people get up in the morning and move around, but they aren’t really awake?  It sometimes takes them hours to be fully awake and responsive.  Their eyes may be open but their minds are functioning slowly and they don’t like to engage in conversation.  They sort of just shuffle around until they wake up.  My husband is like that.  I tease him and tell him that the lights are on but nobody’s home until about noon.

Some of us, however, are awake the moment our eyes open in the morning.  Our minds kick into high gear before our feet hit the floor.  Our internal motors are revved and ready for whatever the day may bring.

I have read several things lately that talked about living out loud and living alive. That strikes a chord in me.  Just like the person who is fully awake and ready to face the day, I want to live like a woman alive – fully alive, aware, feeling and experiencing.  In fact, I wrote that in my journal.  And, as soon as I penned it, I realized that in order to do that, I must be willing to be vulnerable because it is impossible to feel and experience only good.  With the good, bad will also come.

In order to be fully alive, I will be vulnerable to hurt, fear, discouragement, frustration and a whole gamut of negative emotions.  But, I say, “Bring it on!” because I am willing to endure that in order to also experience life at its fullest!  I want to feel joy and have a life well-lived.

To do otherwise is to live life only half awake, like the first person I described.  To live only partially responsive, dulled to what is happening around you.  To live as though you are anesthetized…feeling neither pain nor joy.

Sometimes life beats us up and beats us down to the point that we give up.  Or we get confused about what we should do so we do nothing.  Or we’ve been hurt by relationships so we refuse to allow anyone to get close to us again.  We hold others at arms-length.  But, let me ask you, is that really living?  I don’t think so!

Mind you, when I said, “Bring it on!” I did not say it glibly because I know that the enemy of my soul is crafty.  He delights in throwing fast balls and hard balls that catch me off guard.  He wants me to live under a cloud so thick I can’t see the sun.  He delights when I isolate because of hurt.  He is ecstatic when am caught in the quicksand of depression and can’t seem to find my way out.

But, I am reminded that my God is greater in me than my enemy.  He has made me more than a conqueror!  He has made me royalty.  He has made me to reign!!  And, not just me…He has made you that, too!

We were not created to shuffle through life half awake.  We were created to LIVE and live alive and out loud!

Will you join me?

(In Part II I will discuss what living alive looks like for each of the four different personality styles.  Stay tuned!)