I don’t really like me! That’s a hard admission to make publicly.

I recently read Proverbs 29:25 from The Message, “The fear of human opinion disables; trusting God protects you from that.”

Also recently, a friend confronted me with an observation, “You are an amazing person but no one gets to see the real Jeremy!”

She went on to ask me the toughest question I’ve had to answer, “Why don’t you let people see you, the real you?”

I hide behind a guitar and a microphone, behind craftily scheduled or even silly social media posts. I hide behind a curtain of confidence and authority that I’ve learned to use to control a room.

I’m a good storyteller. That’s what has paid the bills and fed my family since 2010.

Through those stories I’ve given you just enough to be comfortably vulnerable but you don’t really know me. No matter how down and dirty into my story I get on stage, I still hold back…a lot.

Why don’t you let people see you, the real you?

Somewhere along the line a group of people thought it wise to shut down middle and high schools in smaller rural communities in Northwest Missouri and consolidate them into the Savannah School District in Savannah, MO.

So here are all these little country bumpkins that grew up together in class sizes of 20 – 30 students from all these rural communities dumped into a school in a small, cliquey town of about 5,000 people. Our class sizes jumped to anywhere from 100 – 200.

This happened in our 7th grade year just as we are inundated with hormones and a hyperactive need of acceptance.

I didn’t fit in.

Surviving 7th grade year through High School was tough. I was in a living hell. There were a few (and I mean a very few) kind souls who befriended me and somehow kept just enough of my head above water so I could survive that place.

We never knew!

What is wrong with me? Why can’t anyone like me for who I am?

Those are pretty horrible questions for anyone to ask themselves, let alone a pre-teen. Yet I did every day.

Nothing but trouble happens when you ask yourself these questions. You just can’t shake it. The insecurities grow and the roots go deeper and deeper and deeper.

Your self esteem plummets. You don’t like yourself. No matter the version you create.

One day you look in the mirror and say, “I don’t really like me!”

I remember in 7th grade making the conscious decision that no one would ever know about my love of music or my goal to one day be a world traveling singer-songwriter.

Why? Because I had been emotionally crushed. Like a dog that was kicked and called back with the hope off acceptance only to be kicked again. This cycle was repeated over and over and my dream was precious to me. So I hid it.

I would later turn to alcohol and drugs to numb the pain from this vicious cycle. By the time I got to College I was already a high functioning addict.

In the last decade as social media has grown and connected the world I would get friend requests and messages from people from those days.

“I never knew…” is the standard message.

Nope, you sure didn’t. I couldn’t allow you to know me or about my dream. I built walls to protect myself.

Even the kind souls who barely kept me alive during this time will tell you, they never knew!

You think you know me? You only know my walls.

I would love to say Jesus healed every aspect of my life. Don’t get me wrong Jesus has done an AMAZING work in my life. I love to tell people about those things!

But these walls? I’ve only verbally acknowledged they were real a few days ago.

Perhaps you have followed me on social media. Been to several of my concerts. That doesn’t mean you know me, not the real me.

Not many do know the real me. I need to change that.

Why? Living behind emotional walls is not how our Creator designed us.

Yep, that came right back and hit me between the eyes.

When I was 11 – 12 years old I began to build emotional walls to protect myself because I was in an unsafe environment where being me wasn’t safe. I’ve built some pretty impressive walls over the last 30+ years.

However, it is never too late to let God do a work in our lives. My friend challenged me to let those walls down. To allow the world to see me, the real me.

“The fear of human opinion disables”

While you see a confident singer on stage or in a music video. In reality there is a person disabled by “fear of human opinion”.

Where some see success in what Kaci and I have accomplished in our music career, I hear the one voice that said “you suck”.

From that moment in the 7th grade up to now I have allowed “the fear of human opinion” to disable me. I remember thinking, “I don’t really like me!”

However, I am challenged to trust God in this area of life. To just go out and soar and be the person that very few have ever got to experience.

How do we overcome this fear? How can we trust God and let Him protect us in that?

It’s one step at a time. One foot in front of the other. It’s daily leaning on Him whether that be through reading scripture or speaking to Him. Above all else it’s being honest with yourself and God.

For me, it’s clicking the “Publish” button on this post and then simply resting in Him caring only what He thinks of me.

When I do that, for the first time in 32 years people will get a glimpse of the real Jeremy Neely.