There is a truth about myself that I have worked hard to avoid. I am a very sensitive and emotional person. I get my feelings hurt easily and can take things personally. I've built walls to protect myself from this extreme sensitivity.
The way I handled this was to pretend that it didn't exist. When my feelings would get hurt, I'd just bury it. I thought that ignoring it was letting it go. I was wrong. Pretending these feelings didn't exist lead to me holding on to hurts and grudges. It caused me to beat myself up over wrong feelings that I shouldn't be having. I would go to great extents to protect everyone else's feelings at the expense of my own and the truth.
Then the Lord showed up.
I listened to a podcast with Perry Noble and Steve Furtick about protecting your emotional health. They said something along the lines of not allowing people who don't have a voice in the decisions you make to influence the way you feel. Jim Wideman gave us a Real Colors personality assessment. I'm a blue . Blues are peacemakers that have a tendency to sacrifice truth in order to keep everyone happy.
It seemed that every time I read the Bible, verses about being bold in speaking the truth would jump out at me. God was trying to get my attention. If I am to become who He wants me to be I have to deal with this issue of my emotional health. I need to learn to not shy away from the things He shows me to speak about. For this to happen, I couldn't pretend I didn't have these feelings anymore. Instead, I needed to face my feelings and respond in a healthy way.
The first step was being honest with myself. If I was feeling insecure about something, I said so. If I was nervous about something, I admitted it. If my feelings were hurt, I didn't pretend they weren't.
The second step was opening up to others how I really felt. I began to speak feelings, concerns, hurts, and fears in conversations. I'm trying not to avoid uncomfortable conversations I think will hurt people's feelings. Instead I'm trying to have those talks while still considering others' feelings. This has been really difficult for me, but I carry on because I see how fruitful speaking the truth in love can be. Love is the key.
The third step has been the hard part I didn't see coming. The battle has been to take those thoughts and to process them in a way so they don't become footholds for the enemy. A foothold is faulty thinking. I've had a lot of footholds. I've had to fight the last two weeks to not let outside circumstances be used to beat myself up or to hold grudges against others. It's been a war that is emotionally exhausting. But if I continue to interpret circumstances with my insecurity, I'll never be able to speak the truth in love.
I've never felt so raw, vulnerable, and exposed in my life. It's terrifying and liberating at the same time. I know the fear is my old self dying. The freedom is the birth of the new me that the Lord is bringing out.
So I carry on. Weary from the battle. Excited for the victory.
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