I recently started a podcast, but would you believe me if I told you I was terrified to share it? I was. I had so much conviction, I was so sure that it was right especially in this season of life. I did my first two interviews months ago, and then when it was time to share it with the world I was so nervous. And sadly I listened to that fear for too long. I kept wrestling with whether or not I had made up that sure feeling I had that made me buy a mic and do the research. "There was no way I had been that confident," I would think to myself. What did I get myself into?
I kept spiraling through thoughts of how others would perceive it. "Oh great another person doing a podcast." "Why would people want to listen to her?" "This was done so poorly." Things like that, almost on a loop. Why?? Where had that conviction gone? Where had the certainty I felt after spending time in prayer gone? It was still there but at the time the fear was just making itself a little more known, taking up a little more space than those other clear thoughts of conviction.
I knew that I was passionate about the purpose behind my podcast, I knew that I believed in what I was doing, and yet even with that I was silencing myself to fear. Something I tell teenagers almost every week not to do!
Finally I just decided, I need to share this, after all the trailer had literally been up for almost a month...just no one knew about it yet. So I hit "share" on the post that had been sitting in my Instagram drafts for nearly a month and went to bed. Because I'm a chicken and I didn't want to be focusing on what people might be thinking about it.
When I woke up the next morning, I remembered that I had finally shared it and I nervously launched the app to see if anyone had anything to say. I was still terrified. To my surprise, there were several encouraging comments, messages, and shares. But why was I surprised?! I have great friends that will love me even if it was terrible. And yet, I still woke up thinking the worst. Then as soon as I started reading the kind words, my outlook completely changed. I was feeling silly for waiting so long, I was feeling those same feelings of conviction I had before. Why? Because the lie was gone. The "I'm not good enough" and the "this is never going to work" lies I was listening to had been debunked and now I could settle back into the truth of my conviction. Maybe my podcast isn't for everyone, that's okay. I could finally see that again, which stirred up in my heart another very important question.
Where does my confidence come from?
I know what I want to say, but I also know that in the last couple months, if I was listening to those lies as if they were truth, I know I need to check my heart again. Because I want to say that my confidence comes from God. That in Him I am complete, that I don't need the validation of others because when I am walking in something I am called to, I have complete security and validation in the one that created me. That's what I want so badly to say. But if I'm honest with myself, this project has shown that I have a couple holes in my armor, not because God let me down, but because I lost sight of the way this is supposed to work.
You see I trusted Jesus with my life a long time ago. I thought I wrestled this identity stuff to the ground and won a long time ago. And yet here I am again, fighting to believe in the depths of my heart what is TRUE. That I am God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for me to do (Ephesians 2:10). That He did not give me a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). That He can make all things turn for the good of those that love Him (Romans 8:28) and I knew that I loved Him and wanted to honor Him with my life. So how could I forget thee truths that I really do believe?
Because the voice I allowed to be the loudest was the one screaming my insecurities instead of the one that speaks the truth of who I was created to be. The one that helps me walk confidently in all circumstances because I know who goes before me. But man, it's easy to forget those truths and when I forget I try to do it all myself. I try to fake it til I make it. And honestly, I get why people say that, but it doesn't really resonate with me, never has. If I feel fake in any way it's going to awkward and inauthentic, and everyone is going to see right through it. I don't want to fake it. I want to fight for the truth so that I can just be confident in it.
So I guess I'm sharing this with you because I've always wanted things to be kind of neat with a bow on it, and that's just not how it works all the time. I thought I already overcame that insecure identity stuff and was settled in this confidence from God. But here it came again making things messy, a decade after I thought I left it in the rearview mirror. All that to say that this life stuff is messy sometimes, we're always growing, and we have to fight to hear truth, even in our own hearts.
So that's where I'm at right now. I don't have to start back at zero because I've been here before, and I'm getting better every time. But I'm fighting to not give in to the lies. I'm going to cling to the promises of God and what He says about me. I'm going to do my best to silence fear; an ongoing battle in my heart if I'm honest. I'm just going to keep trying to get better and walk confidently in the woman I was called and created to be with or without the validation of others. That's the sweet spot that I think we're all chasing and I hope you can see that just because it may look like I've accomplished a lot in some aspects of my life (namely sports) that I still have a lot that I'm working on and working towards! We're never done, and that's the beautiful part.
Don't let fear take away from the beautiful life you're meant to live. There is something in you that the world needs to see. You might already know what that is, or maybe it's being developed right now, whatever it is be bold and share it.
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