Bloom Well with Mariana

I spent the majority of my life carrying a quiet shame about my existence—

the kind that whispers in the background of your every breath,

telling you that everything about who you are is wrong, unloveable, unacceptable.

That lie unraveled me.

It pulled me into an identity crisis so deep

I no longer knew the sound of my own voice.

And when you do not know who you are,

you will follow anyone who seems like they do—

even if they are leading you straight into a ditch.

I was in India, doing anti-trafficking work,

when I was invited to sit with the story

of the Samaritan woman at the well.

A woman who came alone,

in the heat of the day,

timing her arrival to avoid the eyes, the whispers, the weight of being known.

A woman with a past.

A woman with a reputation.

A woman who, like me, likely believed

she was too much in all the wrong ways

and not enough in all the right ones.

And yet—

Jesus met her there.

Not with distance.

Not with disgust.

But with presence.

He asked her for a drink,

then offered her something deeper—

living water, a life that would not run dry.

He spoke of her past with a knowing that could have crushed her,

but instead, it uncovered her.

Fully seen.

Fully known.

And still—He stayed.

I was asked to step into her place,

to feel what she might have felt as she approached Him.

And immediately, it rose in me—

that same old chorus:

wrong, unloveable, unacceptable…

but most of all: unworthy.

I sat with it,

letting it churn and rise and settle in my chest.

And then,

in the quiet—

Jesus spoke.

You are worthy.

Not when you fix yourself.

Not when you become someone easier to love.

Not when you finally get it all right.

Now.

Exactly as you are.

“For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” (Psalm 139:13–14).

Fearfully—intentionally, with reverence.

Wonderfully—full of detail, depth, and design.

There is something within you

that has never existed before

and will never exist again.

A way of seeing.

A way of loving.

A way of being.

So essential

that the God of all creation looked at the world

and chose not to call it complete

until you were in it.

So how could you know this—

deep in your bones—

and still withhold yourself from the world?

How could you silence the very voice

you were handcrafted to carry?

You were never meant to arrive polished.

You were meant to arrive real.

Imperfections, quirks, and all.

And what He has done in me—

and what He may even weave into you, reader—

is this gentle undoing of shame,

and the slow, sacred return

to who we were always created to be.

I challenge you,

Embrace Authenticity.