kill the good girl

“Kill the good girl,” I think. “It’s her time to die.” 

Get rid of the trusting, accommodating, staying-silent girl who fit into the people-pleasing cookie cutter and never rocked a boat in her life.   

Blame her naive assumptions, her innocent vulnerabilities, her belief in starry-eyed ideals, and her agreeable sweetness to sweep so much under a very big rug. It’s her fault. 

I could pull a Taylor and—with never-going-back fire in my eyes—execute the good girl who got me here. 

I’m sorry, the old Samantha can’t come to the phone right now. Why? 

Because that Samantha took all the hits in the name of her shining reputation and swallowed the pain for as long as she could . . . and now she’s dead. 

Yeah, look what you made me do.

The good girl got played. And now she has to pay.   

Ride the pendulum swing: ditch that believe-the-best innocence and adopt a forget-you fierceness that wears cynicism like a favorite hoodie.

I’ve killed the good girl thousands of times in my head; I’ve wanted her gone. But I’m discovering that healing isn’t found in killing off who I once was. Or who you once were. 

Healing means I can have compassion on her, the good girl who really didn’t know. The anxious girl who didn’t know how to speak up. The reputation-conscious girl who wanted to please everyone. The scared girl who tried so hard to fix the broken things.

Jesus was with her. He was holding that young thing with tenderness, and He didn’t condemn her then, and He doesn’t condemn her now. 

He’s with us when we’re hiding behind the good girl masks, and He’s with us when we finally take them off. 

So maybe the good girl doesn’t deserve to die. Maybe she can get her hands dirty, wrestling with the pain and heartbreak and the junk she never wanted to be part of her story. Wading through that mud, she’ll encounter the best kind of fierceness she never knew existed—a passion that knows boundaries and bravery, sorrow and soul-shaking joy. 

Freedom, relief, authenticity. It’s all waiting in that wild mud us good girls always hoped we could sidestep. 

Yeah, some parts of me are dead now. But death makes room for newness—newness that’s not just good, but bursting with all kinds of strength and confidence and hope.  

Now the good girl stands a little taller with a little fire in her eyes, and that’s a really good thing.