The Bricks of Insecurity
Disclaimer: This blog in no way is meant to hurt anyone, make anyone feel guilty and most importantly these are my problems and my convictions and are not meant to point at anyone else. I can not stress this point enough, this is about my feelings. I also am not trying to enlist anyone to feel sorry for me and to change the way they talk or act around me. I would hate that more than you could imagine.
It has taken me several days to write this blog. It has not been easy and I have walked away many times refusing to write anymore. I have cried so much and prayed so much that I don't feel like I have anything left to give. This is not something most people want to share with others, to be this real is scary. It wasn't until this morning at church that I realized - by something Kyle said in his sermon - that I knew I had to face it, I had to bring God my Song of Pain. I had to deal with it. I do not want this stronghold to hinder my approach into the 40 days study that is starting this week. We were asked to come to the front of the church and dedicate the next few weeks in really finding what God has for us through this study. I knew until I faced my problem I could not give to the study what was needed in order to truly learn the Purpose that God has for me. So here it is what I have been struggling with the last few days and why I haven't written any blogs. Here I am being real and letting people see me in what I consider a not so pretty light........
The other day while talking with my friend Amanda on the phone she told me about going to a women's meeting at her church the night before. She told me that the speaker for the night was wearing a backpack and she had bricks with words written on them of things that as women we struggle with. She had someone place them in her backpack, one by one. By the time the bricks were all in the backpack the woman could barely walk. She did this to demonstrate all the different things- or feelings- as women that we carry everyday on our shoulders. This story really stuck with me over the last few days and I have realized that my backpack is full of bricks of insecurity. My shoulders are heavy from carrying them around and I really want to lay them down.
The fear or the feeling of being unloved is probably my greatest source of insecurity. My relationships with my friends have been in the forefront of my life the last few days I have been searching for my value and my place and have not come up with the answers I wanted. I have always struggled with friendships and trying hard to find my value within them. This is something I hate about myself and it is something I wish I could desperately change! I always seem to have the feelings that friends given the choice would really rather be with someone else than me. I know they love me and I know I am not bad to be around but they would choose someone else if they could. I have seen it happen lately and it hurts. I don't want it too and I try to fight it and not take it personal: but still it hurts. Being left out is something no one enjoys, neither is feeling second best. I often wonder what is wrong with me; do I not give enough to my relationships? Have I been less than attentive or loving? Do I give too much of myself and it turns people off? What can I change to make them love me more? I have often thought the last couple of weeks about walking away and starting over somewhere else. Go somewhere where no one knows me and not allowing anyone to get close to me, that way I won't get hurt.
I know that some of you are already shaking your head and saying she's crazy and self centered (please see disclaimer above) and soooo...insecure. Yep, I am insecure that’s the whole point of this blog. I am not saying that I should be the only friend that my friends should have. This could not be farther from the truth! I am the type of person that loves having a multitude of friends and could never be satisfied with just one and would never expect someone else too either. I HATE, HATE having these feelings of insecurities!! I often cry wondering what it must feel like to be truly loved, to really feel safe within a relationship. To know that I bring value to someone’s life. That spending time with me is not something they feel they should do, but something they want to do.
You have to understand these feelings are not something that have just developed over the last few days or even months, it is something that has hounded me for most of my life. I have never felt secure in anyone’s love. To understand this you have to look into my past and see why I struggle. I had no father and the mother I had was so self centered that she didn't have room to love me. I have been physically, emotionally and sexually abused over and over again growing up by people close to me and that were meant to protect me. At the age of sixteen I finally thought God had sent me a man to take the place of the father I never had but.... he had other ideas other than being my father. My own mother threaten to get a lawyer and take my home from me just a few months ago because I had not paid back some money I owed her. Can you begin to see why I struggle with insecurities and the feeling of not being loved or feeling under valued? People that you expect to love you unconditionally, don't. People that you think should care what happens to you, don't. So many of my friends can't understand this because they have never been there. They grew up in loving homes knowing they were loved and that they could trust that love.
God spoke to me a couple weeks ago while struggling with this issue and he has convicted me. He has told me instead of looking for value, I am to give value. Instead of trying to have a best friend, BE the best friend. Instead of always sitting by the same person at lunch or at the movie, sit with someone else that may feel insecure in her place in people’s lives. Instead of dwelling on my insecurities, make some woman feel secure in me. There are so many women right before my eyes that are looking for a friend to feel safe with, someone to show them that they matter, and someone to make a place for them. This is not easy to do, I want to stay inside my comfort zone, but I have realized that my comfort zone doesn't exist anymore. This a excerpt from an email that I sent to Michelle L. a couple of weeks ago after I had my "light bulb” moment:
"I think I had a "light bulb" go off last night at Starbucks. Lindsay, LoriAnn and I were talking about our comfort zone and how we were being taken outside them. I realized that is exactly what God wanted me to do. He wants me to stop putting so much "stock" into a friendship and most importantly stepping out and seeing what (or who) could be out there. I have struggled most of my life on the friendship thing. Always feeling like I am never good enough or that someone is always better than me. Always believing that a friend would rather be with someone else besides me. I know many women struggle with this and many of them could be within the circle of women at GM. Actually I know of a couple. I think God wants me to reach out to them, reach out to people I would not normally reach out to. I think he wants me to be someone a woman can feel safe with. A friend, that when they are with me they feel wanted and needed. I think he wants me to give to them the one thing I have always struggled with, value. I see the way some of the ladies of GM respond to me and I want to develop that and make them feel secure in my love for them. Some of them have reached out to me but I always focused on my other friendships. God is asking me to step outside of looking for validation to giving that validation to others."
I have looked too much for others to fill my empty cup by seeking approval, affirmation and value and have been miserable until something or someone has filled it. Although I believe it is not wrong to have the need to be loved but... it is wrong to think I can make anyone love me the way I need to be loved. This can only be done by the love given to me by God. He is the only one that is never turned off by my overwhelming need to be loved and valued. He seeks to give this love to me, for me to find completeness in him and only Him. He is the only one I should be offering my empty cup and asking him to fill it with, himself. So many people have told me that God will never send me the husband I so desire until I make him my only desire. I think it's more like he won't send him until I have left these insecurities behind and trust only in his love. I can never love or believe in someone else's love until my heart has been satisfied by God's love first. I have to get to that place that God is my only value and the only system to which I measure it. This will be the hardest thing I have ever tried to conquer and It probably will not happen over night. I will digress and take something someone said or did and place my insecurities on it. I have tried the last couple of weeks to do what I feel God told me to do and so of course satan has been on the prowl feeding into my insecurity and it has crippled me. I have let my feelings get the best of me and I have been shutting down. Insecurity is a stronghold in my life and is not allowing me to live the life that God wants and has asked me to live. I have an overwhelming desire to overcome this stronghold and I feel like God has challenged me in this a lot the last few weeks to help me see that he is the only source of power that will allow me the freedom I seek.
Because I am trying to renew my mind and learning to seek God as my only source of value, I am asking that no one respond with comments to this blog. I have no doubt some of you want to comment and tell me that you love me and value me, but please don't....I probably won't believe you anyway. All I ask is that you pray for me, pray that I will find the love and security that I so desperately seek in the only true place I can find it.
Father help me to abide in your love. Help me to seek you always, to never stray from your side. Help me to overcome this stronghold that has wrapped itself around my life and my soul. Give me freedom from it. I so desperately need to feel loved and you are the only source in which I can fill that need. Help me to stop putting so much pressure on myself to be something I am not in order to get others to love me. Help me to look only to you and who you want me to be. "Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning: For I trust in you: Teach me the way in whick I should walk: For to you I lift up my soul. Psalm 143:8
It has taken me several days to write this blog. It has not been easy and I have walked away many times refusing to write anymore. I have cried so much and prayed so much that I don't feel like I have anything left to give. This is not something most people want to share with others, to be this real is scary. It wasn't until this morning at church that I realized - by something Kyle said in his sermon - that I knew I had to face it, I had to bring God my Song of Pain. I had to deal with it. I do not want this stronghold to hinder my approach into the 40 days study that is starting this week. We were asked to come to the front of the church and dedicate the next few weeks in really finding what God has for us through this study. I knew until I faced my problem I could not give to the study what was needed in order to truly learn the Purpose that God has for me. So here it is what I have been struggling with the last few days and why I haven't written any blogs. Here I am being real and letting people see me in what I consider a not so pretty light........
The other day while talking with my friend Amanda on the phone she told me about going to a women's meeting at her church the night before. She told me that the speaker for the night was wearing a backpack and she had bricks with words written on them of things that as women we struggle with. She had someone place them in her backpack, one by one. By the time the bricks were all in the backpack the woman could barely walk. She did this to demonstrate all the different things- or feelings- as women that we carry everyday on our shoulders. This story really stuck with me over the last few days and I have realized that my backpack is full of bricks of insecurity. My shoulders are heavy from carrying them around and I really want to lay them down.
The fear or the feeling of being unloved is probably my greatest source of insecurity. My relationships with my friends have been in the forefront of my life the last few days I have been searching for my value and my place and have not come up with the answers I wanted. I have always struggled with friendships and trying hard to find my value within them. This is something I hate about myself and it is something I wish I could desperately change! I always seem to have the feelings that friends given the choice would really rather be with someone else than me. I know they love me and I know I am not bad to be around but they would choose someone else if they could. I have seen it happen lately and it hurts. I don't want it too and I try to fight it and not take it personal: but still it hurts. Being left out is something no one enjoys, neither is feeling second best. I often wonder what is wrong with me; do I not give enough to my relationships? Have I been less than attentive or loving? Do I give too much of myself and it turns people off? What can I change to make them love me more? I have often thought the last couple of weeks about walking away and starting over somewhere else. Go somewhere where no one knows me and not allowing anyone to get close to me, that way I won't get hurt.
I know that some of you are already shaking your head and saying she's crazy and self centered (please see disclaimer above) and soooo...insecure. Yep, I am insecure that’s the whole point of this blog. I am not saying that I should be the only friend that my friends should have. This could not be farther from the truth! I am the type of person that loves having a multitude of friends and could never be satisfied with just one and would never expect someone else too either. I HATE, HATE having these feelings of insecurities!! I often cry wondering what it must feel like to be truly loved, to really feel safe within a relationship. To know that I bring value to someone’s life. That spending time with me is not something they feel they should do, but something they want to do.
You have to understand these feelings are not something that have just developed over the last few days or even months, it is something that has hounded me for most of my life. I have never felt secure in anyone’s love. To understand this you have to look into my past and see why I struggle. I had no father and the mother I had was so self centered that she didn't have room to love me. I have been physically, emotionally and sexually abused over and over again growing up by people close to me and that were meant to protect me. At the age of sixteen I finally thought God had sent me a man to take the place of the father I never had but.... he had other ideas other than being my father. My own mother threaten to get a lawyer and take my home from me just a few months ago because I had not paid back some money I owed her. Can you begin to see why I struggle with insecurities and the feeling of not being loved or feeling under valued? People that you expect to love you unconditionally, don't. People that you think should care what happens to you, don't. So many of my friends can't understand this because they have never been there. They grew up in loving homes knowing they were loved and that they could trust that love.
God spoke to me a couple weeks ago while struggling with this issue and he has convicted me. He has told me instead of looking for value, I am to give value. Instead of trying to have a best friend, BE the best friend. Instead of always sitting by the same person at lunch or at the movie, sit with someone else that may feel insecure in her place in people’s lives. Instead of dwelling on my insecurities, make some woman feel secure in me. There are so many women right before my eyes that are looking for a friend to feel safe with, someone to show them that they matter, and someone to make a place for them. This is not easy to do, I want to stay inside my comfort zone, but I have realized that my comfort zone doesn't exist anymore. This a excerpt from an email that I sent to Michelle L. a couple of weeks ago after I had my "light bulb” moment:
"I think I had a "light bulb" go off last night at Starbucks. Lindsay, LoriAnn and I were talking about our comfort zone and how we were being taken outside them. I realized that is exactly what God wanted me to do. He wants me to stop putting so much "stock" into a friendship and most importantly stepping out and seeing what (or who) could be out there. I have struggled most of my life on the friendship thing. Always feeling like I am never good enough or that someone is always better than me. Always believing that a friend would rather be with someone else besides me. I know many women struggle with this and many of them could be within the circle of women at GM. Actually I know of a couple. I think God wants me to reach out to them, reach out to people I would not normally reach out to. I think he wants me to be someone a woman can feel safe with. A friend, that when they are with me they feel wanted and needed. I think he wants me to give to them the one thing I have always struggled with, value. I see the way some of the ladies of GM respond to me and I want to develop that and make them feel secure in my love for them. Some of them have reached out to me but I always focused on my other friendships. God is asking me to step outside of looking for validation to giving that validation to others."
I have looked too much for others to fill my empty cup by seeking approval, affirmation and value and have been miserable until something or someone has filled it. Although I believe it is not wrong to have the need to be loved but... it is wrong to think I can make anyone love me the way I need to be loved. This can only be done by the love given to me by God. He is the only one that is never turned off by my overwhelming need to be loved and valued. He seeks to give this love to me, for me to find completeness in him and only Him. He is the only one I should be offering my empty cup and asking him to fill it with, himself. So many people have told me that God will never send me the husband I so desire until I make him my only desire. I think it's more like he won't send him until I have left these insecurities behind and trust only in his love. I can never love or believe in someone else's love until my heart has been satisfied by God's love first. I have to get to that place that God is my only value and the only system to which I measure it. This will be the hardest thing I have ever tried to conquer and It probably will not happen over night. I will digress and take something someone said or did and place my insecurities on it. I have tried the last couple of weeks to do what I feel God told me to do and so of course satan has been on the prowl feeding into my insecurity and it has crippled me. I have let my feelings get the best of me and I have been shutting down. Insecurity is a stronghold in my life and is not allowing me to live the life that God wants and has asked me to live. I have an overwhelming desire to overcome this stronghold and I feel like God has challenged me in this a lot the last few weeks to help me see that he is the only source of power that will allow me the freedom I seek.
Because I am trying to renew my mind and learning to seek God as my only source of value, I am asking that no one respond with comments to this blog. I have no doubt some of you want to comment and tell me that you love me and value me, but please don't....I probably won't believe you anyway. All I ask is that you pray for me, pray that I will find the love and security that I so desperately seek in the only true place I can find it.
Father help me to abide in your love. Help me to seek you always, to never stray from your side. Help me to overcome this stronghold that has wrapped itself around my life and my soul. Give me freedom from it. I so desperately need to feel loved and you are the only source in which I can fill that need. Help me to stop putting so much pressure on myself to be something I am not in order to get others to love me. Help me to look only to you and who you want me to be. "Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning: For I trust in you: Teach me the way in whick I should walk: For to you I lift up my soul. Psalm 143:8
posted by Sonya Terrell at
11:38 PM
4 Comments:
most of the time, insecurity comes from not knowing what the truth is, rather than the absence of said truth. the truth about you and who you really are and how loved you really are is not one that doesn't exist (notice my handy use of a double negative there). rather, not only does it exist (you are really loved, cherished, appreciated), and you need to know this truth. the point at which you grab hold of these truths and abide in them is the point at which your insecurities will start to dissolve. surround yourself with folks who affirm who you really are, without candy coating things. be that friend that you speak of being and the return can only be more than what you think your heart desires.
Sonya, I remember sitting in a counseling session with two Pastors from GM. I was going on and on about my struggle with feeling like my inlaws hated me. After all of my ranting, one of the pastors looked at me and said, "Who cares what they think about you! Who cares if they get made at you! Who cares what they think." That has stuck with me! Sometimes I have to tell myself over and over when I get in that approval addict mode, WHO CARES WHAT SHE/HE THINKS ABOUT ME! For me, I put pressure on other people if I sit back and watch who they spend time with or how often they spend time with me or how often they don't. I think what you said about being a friend to others instead of always trying to be "the" friend takes the pressure off of you and others. I have been in your boat and often made bad desicions and I am sure I will make more but I am learning right now that I have to be walking so closely next to Jesus. When I am, none of the other stuff matters. I am learning to gaurd my heart and not spill everything to everyone. All of the pain you have endured, all of the trials, all of the struggles, those are your pearls! Embrace the pearls, they are a part of your timeline and God can use that more than anything else. I am proud of you and I am so proud that you can get honest with yourself and be so transparent about the junk. And remember that the enemy will plant things in your mind that are totally, 100% FALSE. Don't believe it for if you believe it you will act it out. Find the TRUTH! I love you my friend.
I am about to fall over. I just read what Patrick wrote about TRUTH! You and I have talked about this, I have blogged about this on my blog. The TRUTH is so important.
I just realized that you said DON'T COMMENT! DUH!!!!!!!
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