Insecurities

I know I've written about this before...but, like a chronic disease, suffering from insecurities keeps coming back at the most inopportune of times.  Just when I think I'm finally walking on more solid grounds, something triggers my insecurities and I step into quicksand.

Sigh...

Insecurities make us feel uncertain about ourselves.  They fill our mind with self-doubt.  They strip us of our confidence.  They make us feel not adequately guarded or sustained.  Insecurities are a synonym of unsafe... and these are just a few of the ideas surrounding the word insecurity, which I found when I visited my trusted friends Merriam and Webster. 

Non of the words associated with the concept of insecurity have any positive ring to them.  They are all anxiety-prone and darkness-oriented...sigh...

Like many other anxious and dark thoughts that dwell in the corners of my mind, I want to get rid of my insecurities.  I'm afraid, however, that in order to begin to allow the Holy Spirit to sweep His Holy broom within my soul to clear it of all the cobwebs woven by my insecurities, I might have to go into a journey that I'm reluctant to embark upon.

I realize, however, that even though this journey to the center of my insecurities is not one I'm willing to embrace, it is one I must at least, begin.  Even if I have to travel in less than comfortable accommodations, I must step into my steerage cabin, make sure I find my life-jacket, and start the voyage, before I sink.

The one thing that would signal that I've taken the first step is to understand the nature of my insecurities.  That, in itself, would take a lifetime.  Perhaps, I might find a more direct route instead:  honesty.

If I'm honest with myself, I'd see that the strongest, most viable root of my insecurities is surely grounded in the fact that I am pursuing to reflect the image of myself that I have created.  I'm trying to live up to the expectations that I have designed for myself.  I am trying to be the Mother, the Wife, the Friend, the Teacher, the Christian, the etc. that I have molded in my own imagination.  I am trying to become the picture I took of myself without realizing that such picture is artificially colored by pride.

At the center of the person I strive to be resides the engine of pride, which sets the whole thing in motion and keeps the whole thing running, as if a movie in my brain that continues playing in an endless rotation for I believe the more times I watch it, the easier it would be to become the person that plays me in it...totally unaware that such a person is but a fantasy...a ghost...a paper doll at best...a marionette with its cords manipulated by my pride which makes me believe that person is whom I should be...that I should be my own creation.

It is not a surprise, therefore, that when the light of reality flips on, and I am able to see that I will never be the paper doll who plays me in the psy-fi movie of my life, I snap.  It is not a surprise that when the light reveals the real me, anger overcomes me, and the taste of failure embitters me.

I will never be that person I have created in my own image.  And my pride cannot take it.

Why couldn't I be?  Why couldn't I be the perfect person I envision?  She is a good person!  She is so much better than who the real me is!  What is wrong with wanting to be her?

The thing is that...I am not supposed to be her.  I am supposed to be who God designed me to be.  But, the issue remains:  I have trouble understanding/accepting, that the person God created me to be is way better than whatever person I imagine I want to be...  

To counter that lack of understanding, I must remember the truth:  It's so much better to be created at the image of the Almighty, than to live up to the Frankenstein-style image I concocted of myself.  And in order to remember this truth, in order to make it mine, I must allow the Holy Spirit to dissolve my pride and fill my soul with humility, so I can truly Praise Him for the person He made me.  I need to whole-heartedly adopt Psalm 139 as my life poem, so I can proclaim, from the bottom of my heart and with all the strength of my mind that:

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well. Psalm 139: 14

I pray that, even though I am embarking in this journey through my insecurities somewhat reluctantly, that the Lord will light the way and lead me through it with the Lamp of His Word, Compassion, Wisdom and Love...and above all, I pray that my personal journey may bring truth, comfort, peace and light to those who embark on it with me.