Insecurity
Have you ever found yourself scrolling...
…through your facebook or instagram feed thinking, "Well, how annoying is it that he posted about his workout?" or "Oh fabulous, she served the homeless while I was shopping today!" Or maybe you have walked away from a conversation rehearsing in your mind the comments you made, and wondering if someone thought you sounded dumb, or maybe you talked too much? Perhaps, you were asked to go out with friends, but avoided it all together, because you just didn't want to face the pressure of having to act like you have it all together. One word sums up all of this hot mess... Insecurity
Insecurity has a strong, pervasive power over us. It has the strength to infiltrate our thoughts and affect our decisions and relationships. It shows up in our angry and defensive responses, when we feel attacked or like we don't measure up. It shows up when we pick ways to cope that help us to hide from people and even ourselves. When we choose being busy over being present, we try and perform our insecurity away. If we can just do good enough… at work, at being parents, at having a fit body, at being Christians, at whatever, then we will be enough. We tear others down outwardly or in our own minds as means of helping ourselves feel like we are okay. It's ugly folks. It's painful and slowly weighs us down.
We weren't born with these habits of insecurity. Ask most young children to tell you if they are strong? Yes! Fast? Yes! Beautiful? Yes! For some of us, there were key experiences that chipped away at who we believed that we were at important times in our development. Maybe you weren't noticed, when you desperately needed to be. We developed habits of looking for when we didn't measure up, instead of when we did. For some of us, the people who were supposed to speak Truth to us about who God made us to be failed. Those who lacked the true understanding of the gospel, shamed us for our sinfulness instead of motivating us by His love. Here is the most wonderful, glorious thing though, there is a way to begin to shed this extra weight.
There is an antidote for our insecurity problem.The healing for our deep seeded insecurities is a deep seeded understanding of His perfect love specifically and uniquely for you. He has a specific love tailored just to you. It is 100% for you, not your cousin, not your friend, not your sister's uncle…. YOU. He speaks it to you, in a language made uniquely for you to understand and to catch your attention.
I love you. I made you.
Yes, yes. I know this is not a new concept. Jesus loves me, this I know. But sadly, I think our insecurity demonstrates that somehow, we are missing it. We don't sit in His love for us and just experience it falling down around us. We go through our days, not looking for His gifts. Ann Voskamp writes about how to tune our mind to seeing Him in all of the little ways that He demonstrates His love. He may reach out to you through a beautiful sunrise, our breath in front of our face during a morning run, giggles of our children, a song, a warm oatmeal cookie, our spouses arms around us… these gifts are Him. Notice. And when you do, sit there, camp out and pitch a tent right there and let yourself feel it. Acknowledge Him. Listen. Thank Him. His love manifests into more than a fact we know, but a Truth that we can feel. And it will weave it's way into the fabric of our thoughts and beings and heart. This is no quick fix. The voices of those who have carelessly or unintentionally wounded you will come back like darts flying towards your heart. Your own voice that has bought into those lies about who you are will creep back in. That pit of fear that nags, "what if I have nothing to offer? "what if I am not enough?" will come back to the surface. But you have felt His love, you have seen it demonstrated specifically for your attention. You can go back there! Into His presence, you can stand in that Truth. Be a warrior against anything but His voice, the one that you have come to know in your gut. With it's calm, steadfast, quiet. You are loved. You are valued. You are enough for me. Fight for it, because the life He has called you to is meant to be lived wild and free. And that my friend is worth the fight.
