Over-sharing

Okay blog world. I read so many blogs of woman who over-share. Those are always my favorite, their absolutely candidness (candidity?) with this community of readers warrants admiration from me all the time. Thus, I'm gonna shoot y'all straight today.

I am insanely messed up when it comes to body image. Like full-fledged-self-deprecating-gag-when-I-see-myself-in-pictures insecure. And this has been a life long battle. I can't tell you of a time longer than a week ever in my life when I was completely secure. I ache for that freedom.

In the past 2 years I have grown insanely in being an independent person, and in my mind, with that should come security. But that's it's own set of problems. Ugly, manipulative, problems. Although I am flattered by compliments, there is always a little rubber band that snaps in me when someone's kind hearted words hit my psyche. It's a nasty monkey that I am dying to not just get off my back, but brutally beat the stuffing out of.

My inadequacy's are only exacerbated by the fact that I am leading my small group through So Long Insecurity by Beth Moore. When the complete irony of it is, teaching is just one other big fact area of inhibition in my life.

I went to my church this last weekend, Kris Mcgee spent the time walking through the point of the gospel. Every. Time. Every time I go there I just sit in awe at the way they are able to convey so clearly to me that I just need to sit with Jesus. All the gospel is is realizing that my hope completely lies in the fact that I can't do anything and Jesus has done everything.

I have a massive issue with my mind turning everything faith-oriented into legalism. But this weekend it was like I finally understood that nothing I do is a catalyst and everything I do is a response. The concept of me being able to control, increase, stimulate, or any other synonym of that type my relationship with Christ is 110% absurd. Everything in my relationship with Him is responding to what has been, is being, and will be done in life, not just mine. It is so hard for me to let that seep in to the way I think. I want to hear this all the time. I need to hear this all the time. Because the lack of that is where my screwed up, messy, hateful way of thinking about myself comes from.

I crave to be around people who love that gospel, who are responding to that gospel. And to be honest, I feel like I'm drowning without it at school. This long-term reality of feeling like something is missing down here has left me feeling like I have to do it alone. I am my own teacher, consoler, counselor, etc. It's exhausting. It is the biggest breath of the freshest air for me to go home these days. Hear this. It's not that I hate it in Bolivar, I love the people, and I love my classes, but there has always been a chunk missing for me. I can't tell you that that hasn't produced a good dose of bitterness in me towards it, but I'm slowly realizing it and asking to change.

But truth is, I'm tired. It's like I'm not able to respond because there I no longer know how to listen for it. I praise God for my family and my church where I feel able to breathe and take in for a little while. I have come to deeply cherish those breaks and while this is insanely frustrating, I am choosing to believe that this all has a point.

So here is the summary. I am a big hot mess. I have body issues. I have faith issues. And I'm tired. I just felt like shooting y'all straight. Regardless of my exhaustion, mess, and inadequacy, writing it down keeps me level headed. So I don't write for pity, I write to be honest. I don't crave compliments, I crave freedom. I know y'all have got to want the same thing, and I know that some of y'all have it. And that's the reason I put this out there: to over-share, because we're in this together.