We are on a break. I hope it’s permanent, but I
know the heart a little too well. You’d think breaking up with insecurity would
be an easy thing. I mean, who WANTS insecurity as a constant companion?
However, before I sell myself totally short, I also know that I have been in a
warrior mode this past year. So much so that I bought 150 arrows to give away
and give away I did. Now I just need a bow, and I ain't talking about the
girlie put in your hair bow that seems to be making a comeback among college
women. That’s another blog entirely along with the resurgence of denim shorts
and neon.
I had my pictures made this week. When people ask me why, I tell them it’s for a
magnet to send out @ Christmas to my financial supporters as a reminder to pray
for me. And while that is a small part
of the reason, it was actually for a much bigger reason, a reason more
significant.
So I went to Aveda (Jen Carey, you were booked! I
promise I did not cheat on you) and the lady curling my hair asked,
“So, are you having family pictures made?”
“Yes.”
She kept curling. I kept praying she wouldn't ask
more questions.
“How many kids do you have?”
Breathe.
“No kids.”
“Do you and your husband want kids?”
Breathe deeper.
“It’s just me.”
Crickets.
“You’re having pictures made by yourself?”
I nod.
“Well, that’s cool. Go have a drink first.”
Laugh.
Insecurity – “Self-doubt, inhibition, nervousness,
lack of confidence.”
Confession.
I just wanted to edit the definition of “insecurity” to make myself look
better. I’m insecure.
Or maybe it’s that
sometimes it is hard to tell ourselves the truth?
A year ago I felt God impress 3 words on my
heart: Covenant, joy, and beauty. I
wrote those words on a strip of fabric and kept it tied around my wrist for two
months.
6 And these words that I command you today shall be on
your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children,
and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the
way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.8 You shall bind them as a
sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your
house and on your gates. Deuteronomy 6
Covenant.
I desperately needed something to shift inside of
my heart and mind. I wanted to
understand God’s covenant relationship with me on a deeper level and not just
dismiss it as something for every Believer (which it is). It was one of those
things that I wanted to know in every fiber of my being that God is WITH.
The LORD, our covenant God. Lasting and
permanent. Is this not what most of us
are looking for? Something lasting and permanent because we are afraid and so
very aware of our aloneness? I’m not talking about being lonely, I am referring
to being an individual who is completely separate from any other person on the
planet. The human experience, per se.
What happens to you when you hear the
first line of “How He Loves?” “He is jealous for me….” Does it stir something in you that can’t be
described? Our Creator is jealous for you? Me? Why? What kind of love embodies the Father that He
would want me so much that He sees it as a good thing for me to have a few more
years to deeply become anchored in “covenant” – more years than I would have
ever chosen, yet would never trade for another story.
Honesty about the things
in our heart draw us near to the Heart of God.
I can’t
imagine being in a relationship where the Father had no emotion towards his
children, and I, as a Daughter, am in need of my Father’s heart.
Joy.
We are still working on this one, but in the
wrestle and disappointments, there’s an anchoring that continues to occur when
life happens. This will have to be for
another blog.
Beauty.
Who knew that this would be the hardest one for
me?!? Beauty. How do you even define this word? Perfect symmetry? A size 2?
Someone who is 23 and has the metabolism of a 23 year old?
More often than not, when I think about beauty, I
sometimes feel small. Internally
small. The kind of soul shrinking small
that steals life, causes paralysis and feeds a fear that has kept me awake at
3AM for the past six months.
When I decided to stare this beast in the eye, I
knew it would be a battle, but I didn't know how intense it would feel or how
deep it would run. When
you begin to wake up to patterns in your life that you always considered “normal”
and see now how much they steal from you, you will either:
1. Cower in fear and avoid what’s been revealed
2. Acknowledge it, but use the excuse, “This is
just the way I am.”
OR
3. Courageously ask for a new way.
We need a lot more people who will cry out from
their hearts, “I want a new way!” Hungry and desperate children cry
out. Now here’s the catch. The gospel catch.
Is the main reason we cry out in order to just
feel better?
Do we cry out so God might hear us and give us
what we want?
Do we cry out “I want a new way” in order to not
feel so exposed in our struggle?
Do we cry out because if we “fix” this area in
our life then maybe God will give us our hearts desire?
With what motive do we cry
out?
I want to cry out for a new way to reveal more of
who God is. To experience Him in deep
and soul-changing ways. To love people
freely without it always being what’s in it for me. To relate to others as The Father, Son, and Spirit relate to one another. To love Him first and foremost.
To be beautiful and unaware because it has nothing to do with
what I look like, but everything to do with being fully alive to the One who
looks at my heart.
So, I put my best dress on and I went to the
woods and I smiled.
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