The title is a little misleading. I'm just trying to be clever.
In an attempt to express things the way I used to before I got into that cycle of only ever ranting through my blog, I've decided to go the more personal route again this time. Also, I've hit a point where I'm starting to come out of a tunnel that I somehow entered and the light is beautiful, and I want to share it.
BACK STORY TIME! I struggle with insecurities. WHAT? A GIRL THAT STRUGGLES WITH INSECURITIES? HOW ORIGINAL! HOW UNHEARD OF! I know, right? I always feel kind of lame when I say that. Like, how stupid is it that I'm 21 and I still feel like I'm 14 when I look in the mirror and go "Blah" at the face staring back at me? At the same time that I feel stupid, I also feel really alone in my battle for liking myself. I literally just pointed out how common of a problem insecurity is, though, so I'm proving to myself as I type these words that I have no reason to feel alone (nor should you in the event that you can relate).
I also struggle with depression (though, admittedly, not as much as insecurities) and those two things tie in so well with each other it's not even funny. I basically spent all of last month falling prey to that deadly duo and the last time that happened to this same extent, I was 14 (hence my statement in the last paragraph). I feel kind of like I've basically been taking an extended, unpleasant trip down memory lane, but with new twists and turns and pitfalls and other dramatic phrases. In an attempt to not waste as much time as I did the first time around, I've sought help WAY faster.
And help has indeed helped.
So, now that you understand sort of where I'm coming from, I'm going to explain the purpose behind the title. A lot of my insecurities come from what I feel to be unmet desires that the enemy has "kindly" helped me twist into big old knots of stupid. Knots pretty much suck all the time, and it's often very hard to see where the actual problem lies, because all the extra string gets bunched up and hides the solution. That's what I've been feeling like inside. You still tracking with me?
These knotted up, "unmet" desires have become so confused in my brain and heart that I've become like the Israelites in Egypt, and have sought help from empty wells and idols. In this specific instance that I'm referring to, I've elevated my human relationships over my relationship with God and have found them to be ultimately unsatisfactory. With the problem correctly diagnosed thanks to the aforementioned helpful help, I've been able to see that the treatment is a nice dose of truth.
Am I being too ambiguous with my wording? I don't want to bear every little piece of my soul here, so I'm sorry if I'm kind of dancing around the details...
ANYHOW, people make a bad God. God is a good God, and when I let Him be God, He amazes me. However, when I kick Him off the throne and put people there instead, I find myself..wait for it...depressed and insecure.
SPECIFIC EXAMPLE TIME! People don't listen to me. My friends, guys that I'm interested in, guys that I'm not interested in, random folks that I meet...randomly. They just don't. I don't know if what I'm saying is boring, or if I'm bad at catching people's attention from the get go, or if I just mumble and then people give up trying to hear what I'm saying. For whatever reason, a lot of people have a really hard time focusing on what I'm saying when I'm speaking to them. And that hurts. A lot.
That "helpful help" is one of my older sisters in the faith who is WAAAY wiser than me, and is so surrendered to Jesus that I want to follow her, because I know she'll always point me to Him. She asked me to identify what the desires I was really feeling were behind the relationships I was seeking to fix my insecurities. One of those desires was to be paid attention to. It honestly just started out with guys still not paying attention to me, but then I started to notice that thing I just mentioned about how people just start ignoring me when I'm talking, and I realized I kind of feel like no one pays attention to me.
While we were discussing all of the other triggers and desires and stuff, she asked if I had any Scripture that I go back to frequently. I told her Psalm 139. She grabbed her Bible, opened up to it, and had me read it out loud in sections that we then dissected. I have read that psalm more than I have read any other passage in the Bible. I spent an entire summer at camp memorizing it. It pretty much stalked me for a whole year by popping up all over the place until I paid more attention to it. And God's Word is most definitely living and active, because the psalm I know best is still cutting straight through my heart.
I honestly usually pay the most attention to verses 13 and 14, because that's where it talks about being fearfully and wonderfully made, but this time, it wasn't those verses that got me. It was verses 1 through 6, which say...
"O LORD, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, O LORD, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is too high, I cannot attain to it." (NASB)
I want someone to pay attention to me and listen to me when I'm talking, right? GOD pays so much attention to me that He knows what I'm going to say before I even know. WHOOP! There it is! Here's that beautiful light I mentioned earlier. Here's the treatment, the knot inside the string. My "unmet" desires have actually already been met through Christ. Because He reconciled me with God through His death and resurrection, I no longer have to seek my satisfaction through human relationships. If I find my satisfaction in Him, and if I rest in the fact that HE listens to me and pays attention to me, I won't hurt as badly when the people in my life don't.
Know that I'm not trying to say anything about those people. I love them dearly despite their inability to listen, just as they hopefully love me dearly despite me unintentionally demanding that they hear everything I say to them.
Satan is a crafty jerk, and the Bible says that he's come to steal, kill, and destroy. One of the best ways for him to do that is by taking our natural desires and twisting and perverting them, and then screaming in our ear that we need to fulfill those desires through means other than the Lord. He's the ultimate re-brander, because he makes sins like idolatry looking freaking good. Then he shames us when we fall prey to it. But the light is shining now, and I'm seeing where I went wrong. And I'm dragging it even further into the light by telling you about it through this post because sin doesn't grow well when it's taken out of the darkness.
All of this to say, God is at work showing me the truth behind my hurt, and you should know that He can do the same for you. True satisfaction should never be sought somewhere other than the Lord, because it can never be found there. This is what I'm learning and I hope you can learn it through me so you don't have to hurt the way I have.
