Insecurity and Impending Freedom

I’ve been feeling really insecure lately. This is unusual for me; I have found that if I know where and how I stand before the Lord, the things around me that could have the capacity to make me feel insecure lose their power to press me down. So I have been eager to identify the source of my faltering and to reposition myself on the Rock that doesn’t waver when I do.

I started reading a book the other day about freedom in Christ, and felt the urge to stop and share with you my insecurity. It’s something I have struggled with off and on for years, and perhaps now--if I will let Him--God wants to uproot the lies that feed it once and for all.

I am a very intense person; I feel things deeply, I process things deeply, I articulate things deeply (and oddly...sometimes everything comes out in the form of poetry because, let's be honest, I’m sort of weird), and I have no qualms about sharing openly all the things I am walking through AS I am walking through them whether they are good, bad or terribly ugly. For better or for worse, that is how I am built. Correction: All but the last one fall into the category of "how I’m built," the last one showed up after I started following Jesus.

My biggest insecurity is that I overwhelm people...like an unwelcome hurricane crashing into a coffee drinker while they are relaxing on their peaceful patio, or a massive gust of wind rushing on an unsuspecting picnicker just wanting to take in some fresh air. As I just wrote them, I notice that these analogies both produce the same result: Their nature and presence push away the things they meet.

So when I go through seasons of being bombarded by this insecurity, I find that I shut up, and I shrink down, and I withhold my thoughts and myself because of my assumptions of how I will be received.

I think somewhere at the core of my fear is the familiar pain of being alone. I grew up alone; the environment I was raised in was super exclusive, I was very cut off from people and developed an identity of being a misfit in the world around me. No place to belong, no people to belong with. When I discovered fellowship in the Body of Christ, I delighted in it like no one else I have ever met...I grabbed ahold of it SO hard that the lies that could have kept me from it didn’t stand a chance at holding me back. And when I learned how to build friendships in my mid 20s, I relished the privilege of walking through life with others; shoulder-to-shoulder, learning from each other, helping each other, weathering life in the intimacy of the highs and lows we encountered. I love people; I love getting to know who they are and how they are built and what makes them tick. I love watching them change and grow and remain. I love discovering their unique quirks and getting to understand them. I love learning from them and getting to glean from their presence and purpose in the world. I love connecting to and with people from any age or walk or place.

All that to say, I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to return to the loneliness of my past. I don’t want to miss out on the people around me (because let’s be honest, people are the most important thing in this world). And so, when my insecurity rears its ugly head, it holds a lot of power over me because it calls out to me that the cost of my voice and my presence and my nature is too much...it will simply push away the opportunity for relationship or fellowship. And I find myself back in the familiar (yet painfully uncomfortable place) of being an observer of life, not a participant.

So there it is. I haven’t processed and prayed my way out of this and into freedom yet, but step one is to bring it into the light, right? I hope I will get to share with you the end of this journey, not just the beginning. :)