Over the past few years of my life, I have set a goal for myself. BE REAL. Be open & honest. Be transparent. Be…well, be myself. Hi, I’m Traci. Nice to meet you. If you want to know something, I’ll tell you. If I’m excited, hurt, upset, happy or angry about something, believe me you’ll know. This may or may not be a good thing all the time! My life is an open book. I don’t hide things well and now I think, its OK because I don’t want to hide things anymore. Ask Ryan. Ask my family. Ask any of my friends. Ask my coworkers. I have come to determine that life is way too short to be something you aren’t. To put on a facade just to impress people – well, I’m just over that. Its very tiring! And its a lot more stressful trying to “play it cool” than to just be honest. Being who God made you, now that IS cool. Being the same person at work that you are at home & that you are at church – that is incredibly freeing. Living from the inside out. I strive to please God with my life & yearn to be more like Jesus daily. But I fail and I screw up all the time. I am not perfect. Because of God’s grace, as long as I am running towards him – I am on the right track. He is at work in my life, molding me into who He wants me to be and I love that! At a college bible study I used to go called Paradigm, Jon Randles used to say all of the time, “What’s in a man, comes out of a man.” What’s on the inside, shows on the outside. You can’t hide what’s going on in your mind & heart from God – He knows. And I’ve come to find that if you are transparent with your life to others- God can use that in awesome ways – this can be such a great testimony to those around you. Being real helps to hold you accountable in your walk with Christ. As I’ve mentioned on here before, I’m so thankful for our community group. We have made some dear friends through this & for that I am truly thankful. True community is a beautiful thing. Ryan & I have been starving for this for quite some time and have just found it recently. Friends that can come together, share and be real with each other – its amazing to have this. So I want to encourage you two things here in this post. 1. Try to live from the inside out. Let others see the real you. If the real you needs work, thats OK – we all do! Set your eyes on your Maker and He will help direct your steps & give you the strength you need to get through. There is such freedom in Christ! 2. If you don’t have a community of friends that you can share life with – find one immediately! Pray for this. Having people come along side you, pray for you, encourage you, and hold you accountable, its vital. Not to mention a lot of fun!
Just a little something from my heart to yours…love you all!
Traci
The Dixon Blog 
I couldn’t agree more about our community group! Can’t wait to get even more REAL with everyone!
Word.
I totally agree. Great great post….
This knowledge finally came to light for myself when I became a mom. I realized all of the silliness that goes on around us. Great post Traci!
How many dads get to be as proud as yours?
🙂 i love you dad. a lot.
I love this post! I agree completely about realness. Any other way is EXHAUSTING.
So, in the spirit of being real, I thought I’d tell you something ridiculous about me that I think of every time I see you or hear your name mentioned: For a significant amount of time in my childhood, I wanted to grow up to have five kids and name them Traci, Casey, Staci, Lacey, and Macy.
There. I said it.
HAHAHA! that’s great, thanks for opening up about this hannah. i am sure you feel such relief from sharing that! 🙂 you know, the funny thing is, i actually have cousins’ named kacie & staci.
Traci,
I love your blog and that is so true about just being the real you. I’ve always felt that if you are yourself then you don’t have to try to remember what you said or did when you try to be someone else. I always felt that this is the way God made me so I must be what he wanted cause he don’t make junk. 🙂