Insecurity

I have been thinking quite a bit about the fact that we often don’t know or understand what leads to a person’s insecurity, even a person we might know and love well.  Maybe we only see the amazing, healed person they have become, but we don’t know about the wounds that lead to them becoming compassionate, patient, understanding, or whatever else it is we value in them. I have been blessed and honored over the year to have many people share their hurt and insecurity with me. They are usually surprised to learn about the things that caused me insecurity; I mean after all these days I am pretty cool. I rocked the purple hair, have a fabulous shoe and dress collection, I’ve been ax throwing, and when I walk into a gathering I’m often greeted like a minor celebrity. All the cool kids love Miss Stacie!  : )

But this is only possible because my faithful, loving God has done a deep work of healing in my life. People usually react the same way when they find out that I was adopted, “What? I didn’t know you were adopted?!” Which is fine because I love my family so being adopted wasn’t a big deal. Except there was the lie in the back of my brain that I was given away because I wasn’t good enough. And then my dad left when I was 19 (he’s back now, it’s a long story and not really the point), and then all my friends got married ten to fifteen years ago and I remained single, unchosen, unpursued and the lie was rooted deeper. I am not good enough. I was never very popular or cool in junior high or high school, which I honestly didn’t mind because I had great friends and I was not a fan of the “cool” behavior. But, the lie whispered, “maybe you weren’t popular because you weren’t good enough.” Maybe who you are simply isn’t good enough, isn’t lovable.

Now, this isn’t a sad let me tell you why I am insecure message. This a joyful let me tell you how deeply the Lord has healed me message. I love the person that I have become and I am excited about the person I am becoming. Yes, there are still some residual effects, some scars from old wounds, or areas that need continued healing. These manifest in a variety of way. At times I have a hard time walking into a room alone, or approaching people I don’t know well, or speaking up at meetings. But the Lord keeps working and I am growing bolder and more confident in what I have to offer and who I am. And I think it is helpful to share what makes or has made us weak so we can also share the blessing of how God makes us strong.

I also want to be clear that the process of healing isn’t always easy and it can take time, years in fact. Believing I am lovable took prayer, both my own honesty prayer before the Lord, and other people’s loving intercession for me. Healing involved me being vulnerable with people and then trying to listen when they spoke words of affirmation to me, holding on to those words even when I wasn’t yet ready to believe them. And, real, true, deep healing, meant that God had to dig deep and turn up the soil of my heart to uproot all the lies. That tilling process was excruciatingly painful and left me in tears on a number of occasions. The lies buried deep in our souls, the things we believe about ourselves without examination, can be devastating when brought to light and acknowledged.

But once the soil was all tilled up and the lies uprooted, God could plant a garden in my heart. In that garden now I can meet other people and offer them understanding. I can allow myself to be a place of refreshment, solace, and hope because I have experienced the wonderous truth that what has been broken can be made whole and what has been desert can become a place of life-filled beauty.