Thursday, May 26, 2016

Fear and the place it used to have...

It's 10:37pm.  I have to get up at least by 6:30, so I can get to the store to buy things for our last day of Week 1 of summer school.  Yet I am compelled to write.  I am compelled to tell a little bit more of my story, and be pretty vulnerable tonight.  It is what helps me to grow, it is what I need to do in order to truly work through all the things that I have going through  my mind right now.  

I have had a realization this week.  Much of which I knew was coming, but it still just blows my mind the way things work in my soul and heart.  

What I have come to?  

The truth that.... I AM ENOUGH.  

For the longest time, actually I think probably since before I even knew how to successfully be a friend to anyone I have been comparing myself to those around me.  I have been putting myself down, and I have been feeding into the lie that I will never ever achieve success by anyone's standards because I am not good enough.  I don't know that anyone ever specifically told me those words, but circumstances for as long as I can remember them have led me to develop this inner feeling that I will never, ever measure up.  

It caused me to keep people in my life that only wanted to destroy me.  It caused me to not take chances in relationships, in jobs, in life.  It caused me to run the opposite direction and hop from place to place, all in search of this ideal person that I thought I was supposed to be.  The idea that I would never be enough.  I was constantly searching for the other part of myself that would be enough.  I was constantly looking for others to approve of me, so that I could finally fit into the mold that had been carved out.  

I allowed myself to believe that because I didn't date anyone until I was close to my 30's that I really was not enough.  I convinced myself that I was stuck with the only person that had shown me attention because I was not enough.  I convinced myself that all the other rejections were clearly because I was not what the typical "ideal" woman was like. I convinced myself that I was the worst representation of what anyone would want for a wife, and mother.  I convinced myself that I had messed it up, and that I didn't deserve anyone in my life to love.  I convinced myself that I would never be enough because I might never have everything that other people have.  I convinced myself that the only way I was worth something was to have a husband and family. 

So, all this convincing that I did... you want to know how it has shaped me?  It has turned me into a person that keeps people at a distance.  It has turned me into someone that thinks people are only using me to get to someone else.  It has turned me into someone that uses my trust issues to push people away.  

My realization came a few days ago, when I thought about how I allow my trust issues to be an excuse for me.  How I allow myself to sometimes be a martyr because of trust.  I understand now that I have allowed my trust issues to define me.  I have used them as an excuse to push people away. I have used them as an excuse to not open myself up to love.  To not open myself up to people that will in fact build me up instead of tear me down.  I have allowed these issues to cause me to believe that I screwed up royally and that I do not deserve God's best.  You know what though?  

I choose to not give in to this lie anymore. I choose to take on the love, grace and mercy that has been offered me. I choose to open myself up to whatever it is I am feeling, even if it means I am wrong and even if it means I might get hurt.  I can't live life authentically if I am hiding behind a mask that refuses to trust.  I can't allow myself to breathe in the community around me and allow them to change me if I am locked away inside my world of bubbles. I must choose to embrace all that I am.  I must choose to see myself through the eyes of my Creator.  Knowing that I was created for a purpose.  That my purpose may or may not include being a wife and mother.  But that doesn't define my worth. 

Fear can get the best of us.  It can hold us so tightly that we are choked.  We are unable to breathe, and then we just think that is the way that we have to live.  With shallow, raspy breaths.  It isn't the way we have to live.  In fact it is so much the opposite of how we were intended to live.  

We were intended to live with freedom that comes only from knowing that we are Created beings, made in the image of our Creator.  We were intended to love, and trust.  We were intended to be open and not fit the everyday mold.  We were intended to be our own unique selves.  We were intended to be an example of His beauty.  We were intended to change this world.  

I can no longer live with the fear that I will never measure up, and that I have to hide who I am because I might get hurt.  I can no longer allow those thoughts to be the driving force of how I live.  There is more to this life than that.  So much more.  I choose to trust, I choose to believe in the community that I live in.  I choose to open myself up to show people what love is.  I choose to break down walls, and I choose to not allow my own insecurities define my worth.  Most of all though, I choose to see myself as I was created.  I choose to know that my soul, does not depend on what others think.  My worth does not even depend on the good that I do in this world.  My worth has already been bought.  I am worthy because He is.  I am worthy because I choose to believe.  I am worthy because someone loves me.  I am worthy without proving anything.  

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