A Case of the Shakes

Or, I thought of calling this one 'The Wibbly Wobblies' or - 'Jesus, freakin help me.' A case of the shakes was what ended up being typed as I sat down so there you have it.

The past few weeks (it may have bled into months, actually), I have been weird... but I didn't realize it until about a week ago. I think that very very few people would have picked up on it because it was so internal. And hey, we can all put on a lovely face at the right times! I have found this to be my pattern - it takes a good bit of time of something building up inside of me for me to finally wake up and say 'wait a second, something's not right here.' But like I said - about a week ago the light bulb went off (thank you God!) and it became so clear to me. Out of seemingly nowhere, I was in a battle with insecurity at most fronts of my life.

Can I just say, I HATE insecurity? I really hate it. It is so ugly - is it not? It makes you act ugly, think ugly, and stir up the ugly in others. I have my own hypotheses on where it came from, but that's for later.

The really stupid thing about insecurity is that it rarely presents itself as blatant insecurity. Let's take me for example...I wasn't going about my daily life thinking 'Man, I just feel so insecure!' Instead - I found myself coming up against a pattern of thoughts or actions that looked like: Fear, masking itself as control...obsessing over certain areas of my life and thinking/thinking/thinking about them. Or fighting/fighting/fighting about them. Or, I'd walk past those three or so areas of my home that truly need deep-cleaning and re-organizing and silently assault myself for STILL not getting to them. I mean, what kind of successful woman just continues to 'not get to something?' And then here's the kicker: I was having imaginary conversations in my head between Zion and me and imagining the very critical thoughts he must be thinking about me. I was feeling the disappointment he must feel with me but hadn't yet communicated. The lack of affluent words building me up, up, up MUST CERTAINLY mean he thought I wasn't cutting it. And, according to how my thought life had started to go, I really wasn't cutting it.

I would actually like to erase that last paragraph in its entirety because I dislike it so much! You can see the yuck and I can see the yuck. Clear as day! But the thoughts lived in the back of my subconscious not in the big clear part of my thinking. I think it's right where the enemy likes them. Quiet, hidden, and slowly affecting the way you behave more and more.

It's been a while since I would say I truly struggled with insecurity. Sure, a bit may pop up here or there - but it hadn't grabbed me and colored my perspectives for quite some time. Which is probably another reason that it took me a bit to clue in to what was happening.

Now, I don't want to be overly dramatic about my state of being. It wasn't a true emotional crisis; it wasn't keeping me in bed when I should have been up and going. It just made me feel shaky - often.

The thing is, I KNOW that every single person can relate. Isn't that the stupid thing about it? Out of insecurity, we all instinctively hide it. Sometimes we even hide it from ourselves. That's the worst. And you know, most of us go around feeling like we are the only ones who deal with insecurity. Because, after all, look at her life. What does she have to be insecure about? Not. Ever. The. Case.

Well, the yuck is starting to get too much here! There is hope in this story or I wouldn't have done this post.

God is so good. He cares so very much. Truly the instant He put off that light bulb giving what I had been feeling a name - hope started to flood in. It made me angry (because did I mention that I hate insecurity?) but so relieved. It has been my experience that when God clearly brings to my attention a situation that needs to be dealt with - it's because He has a plan to deal with it! He built a plan in me for how to proceed. The Holy Spirit is so appreciated, is He not? :)

Through talking it out and praying it out, the shame left and the resolve came. The crazy had to go. The lies had to go. The rationale had to go. All of the sudden, I could reconnect with who He said I was instead of my own labels I had become over the past weeks. Oh my word - it felt like I could breathe again.

Zion did a teaching in our small group about identity once. He highlighted the fact that one of the definitions of the word identity is 'the condition of being the same with something described or asserted.' Hmmmm... SO, identity isn't just who I uniquely am as an individual. More importantly, it is who I choose to be the same as. I take identity in Him.

I want my identity to be less and less about how great or poor of a woman I am and more and more tied to how unthinkably good and kind and big He is.

I pray that you feel hope. There's so much more that can and should be said about insecurity, but alas, this little blog is just my feeble attempt to shed light on what God is doing in my life - day by day.

My encouragement is that a simple conversation with God can have big payoffs. Ask Him to illuminate what needs to be brought to light. And then, ask Him to show you the way forward. And then, discipline yourself to take those steps whatever they are because there will likely be something in you that would really rather not move forward in that way.

Romans 5:1-11 brings some real truth to me:

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we[b] boast in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we[c] also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11 Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

We are justified by Him. No matter how yuck we may feel about ourselves, it is Him and Him alone that brings justification and worthiness to us. No other person can do that for us. No job can do that for us. No relationship can do that for us. And as I can personally attest, no cookie does that for us. Ha!

Thanks for journeying with me today. I mentioned it at the top, but I do think there's another reason insecurity wanted to rear its ugly head. I have been praying about leading a summer book study of Beth Moore's 'So Long Insecurity, You've Been A Very Bad Friend.' Well go figure, I'd get to have some fresh and hands on experience before launching into that! It's a great book. I read it three years ago and it's just about time to dig back in.

Happy day to you!