Natalie Oursbourn
bourn to be: wife | mother | friend | encourager
Isn’t this “about me” page supposed to be a casual life summary of all the things your are super successful at? I started thinking about what I would write that would sound professional and larger than life, but honestly it’s just not me. So here you go, you get the stripped down simple truth about who God is molding me to be through the glory days and the days I can barely drag myself out of bed.
Anyone know about the enneagram test out there? This past year we were exposed to this marvelous, yet maddening test. The kind of test that shows you “who you really are”. That can be a very exposing feeling, am I right? Do we really want to know who we are??? The good AND the bad? So here is what the test said, I’m a challenger, an achiever, and a perfectionist. Ouch. Yep, you better believe that all my childhood fears came bubbling out. I don’t want to be that, I mean who wants to be all those things? But it was right. I am those things. When you take this test, I find most people don’t want to really accept that this is who they are, because when you are read your results you focus souly on the negative aspects of it. So I had to dig deep, I mean really deep, into who God says I truly am. Here is what I am working towards, this is my journey.
I’ve learned over the years to tame the challenger and listen more. I’m working to not feel the need to be the best, but that trying my hardest with what I have been given is the best. I’m also hearing God more clearly when he says I can’t “perfect” my way to his love and grace, his love is abundant and his grace is never ending. I’ll never deserve it, but he gives it to me anyway. So is the mystery of grace.
So were does that leave me? I am comfortable to stand up for the people around me and am confident in the gifting’s God has blessed me with. I have a heart for the sisterhood around me, and believe that as women we have to stand together, championing each other in successful moments, and encouraging one another in the overly stressed and “slapped by life” days. I am driven, hard work is woven into the core of my DNA, and I love to read the room, adapting to the people around me. I am used it to dial into the individuals in my sphere, really assessing the needs then working hard to help them. I also can be very black and white when it come to ethics but it means I’m not scared to stand for what I believe to be right. I know the word of God is the truth, I will unapologetically speak life into the everyday situations around me, lifting people from the burdens of society.
I am going to continue to grow, as we all should, but I can rest in the knowing that God has prepared me to reach the lost, and because I trust him with every fiber of my being I will walk knowing he has called me to the life of a missionary. And the God I know, doesn’t make mistakes, he made just the way I am for a time such as this.