great is your faithfulness

I cannot overstate how incredibly free I feel at the start of this season in my life.

Like a ton of bricks has been lifted off my heavy, heavy shoulders.

And let me tell you, I've been carrying those bricks for a long, LONG time.

The insecurities I've been carrying around with me for most of my life are just too heavy to keep hauling around with me everywhere I go!

As far as insecurities go, I think I was plagued by them from many fronts, and my our personality traits made them harder to bare.

I've certainly had some breakthroughs in the last year, especially last September when I realized my fear of failure.

But I've still been kinda stuck in the mud of fear...

plus my fear of rejection...

my constant need to prove I'm beautiful...

my wanting to be thin enough...

my overly sensitive heart...

that have all paralyzed me in so many ways!

Everything was so heavy to carry around, and I didn't really even know I was doing it.

Since we've been married, money has always been something we've had very little of.

For one reason or another, we've just never been able to make enough to save.

God has always provided and we've been able to make enough to live on, but that's about it.

It's always been that one of us had a full-time job while the other only got to work part-time or not at all.

I've been the one who's hardly worked for over a year, and you can imagine what it's done to my self-esteem, confidence, and really just, respect from my husband...

Then, to top it all off, my boss fired me completely out of the blue in February...

And I felt like a total failure.

I could so relate to Jeremiah's words:

"...my soul is bereft of peace;

I have forgotten what happiness is;

so I say, "My endurance has perished;

so has my hope from the LORD."

Remember my affliction and my wanderings,

the wormwood and the gall!

My soul continually remembers it

and is bowed down within me."

-Lamentations 3:17-20

I felt like a lost cause.

I felt like I'd squandered my opportunities for school.

I felt lost and totally alone.

But... God has been healing me.

My heart, my soul, my mind, my strength.

A big part of that has been reading So Long Insecurity.

God has been renewing my dignity and showing me where my security and freedom is found.

A couple of my friends had encouraged me to write a no-send letter to my boss just to help get my emotions out so that I didn't have to hold on to them any longer.

When I read this portion from the book today, I knew I didn't have to write the letter--

this is exactly what I would say :

"You can hurt my feelings, but you cannot have my security.

I won't let you. It's mine to keep. You cannot have it.

You can criticize me and even be right about [some of] what I did wrong, but you don't get to damage my security. It's mine to keep. You cannot have it.

You might have embarrassed me, but I refuse to let it fall on me so heavily that it smothers my security. It's mine to keep. You cannot have it.

You may [seem to] be so intimidating and threatening that I feel I have to hand a lot of things to you, but I refuse to hand over my security.

Who you are doesn't get to dwarf who I am.

My security is mine to keep. You cannot have it."

-Beth Moore

I don't have to keep playing out what happened in my head any longer.

I am free from that slavery and I will not let it have power over me anymore.

Jesus has given me freedom and I am going to embrace it like never before!

Chad read from Lamentations (the first portion is above) on Sunday, and really...

the timing couldn't have been better to hear this passage :

"But this I call to mind,

and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

"The LORD is my portion," says my soul,

"therefore I will hope in him."

-Lamentations 3:21-24

Two days after hearing these words, I have a job again.

Even if I didn't, God's mercies are new every morning--

And I will hope in him, always.