Insecurities

I would think that I should be the last person to write about insecurities, since it is something that I have been struggling with for a long time. But it is a topic that has been laid on my heart today.
I guess sometimes it is the ones that have gone through the struggle that can be the ones to reach behind and grab the hand of the person that is behind them.
What I am trying to say that I am still learning, but here is what I have learned.

in·se·cu·ri·ty

ˌinsəˈkyo͝orədē/

noun

noun: insecurity; plural noun: insecurities

1.

uncertainty or anxiety about oneself; lack of confidence.

When I was in my late teens, I began to face doubts about myself. I began to think that I was not a person that could be liked or loved for who I was. My personality, character... I just didn't think that people would care to befriend me or be around me. Even though I had great friends at the time, and an amazing family who really did surround me with love and friendship.

Somehow the lies found a place in my thoughts and I began to see them as the truth.

I don't want to get to much in to the details of it all, because it doesn't really feel like the right time to do so.

But the short of it is that it took me a couple of years and a lot of running down the wrong path to recognize those lies and realize what the truth really was.

The truth was that I was looking for worth in all of the wrong places. I was looking to people to give me that security and to make me feel like I was loveable, and to tell me that I would become someone that was worth remembering.

One of my favourite books is "Set-Apart Femininity" by Leslie Ludy. In there she touches on how women in this day and age are told to fix the problem of insecurity by learning to love themselves and not to care about what anyone else thinks of them.
But doing that is not going to fix the problem.
We have a natural desire to please, and to be loved by more then just ourselves. Though we may say that we don't care what other people think of us, it really is just a cover up for those inward feelings, the desire to be accepted.

The answer is to not place the bar of acceptance into the world's hands, but to place it in the hands of Christ.
To stop focusing on who we are to the world, and rather who we are to Him.

God says in His word that He has chosen us. Adopted us. Called us.
He has a plan and a purpose for our lives. When we can really wrap our brains around the awesome love that He has for us, and the desire that He has to see us living with that purpose, we would find true security.
When our day is not wrapped up in how others react to the things we do, or how we are perceived by the rest of the world, but rather in how Jesus would react to the way we are living our lives, and how he sees us... it changes everything.

Trade in the self-confidence for God-confidence.
As a Christian, I have God on my side. And with God I can do anything. He is bigger then any mistake that I could make. He is not surprised by my fumbling attempts. He wants me to be confident not because of who I am, but because of Who's I am.
We are His beloved, His children. He sees the potential that we have to be a shining light in the world around us.

Now, when I begin to feel the insecurity try to snuff out the light that I am called to be, and cause me to crawl back into that unfeeling shell, I try to remember that God is bigger then my fear.
I am loved unconditionally by the creator of this earth.
His arms are always ready to receive me if I mess up, or feel alone.
And I was created by a God who doesn't want to see me shrink into the shadows, but to find my purpose, to shine bright in the darkness, and to be secure in the calling that He has placed on my life.

 When we come to Jesus, we exchange our desires to be noticed and appreciated for the desire that He and He alone would shine gloriously through our beings. Maybe no one will ever notice us. But that makes no difference as long as they notice Him shining through us.
(Set-Apart Femininity; pg 48)