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So Long, Insecurity - A testimony of healing |
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Written by Monica Wamsley
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Sunday, 14 March 2010 16:31 |
This is a testimony of a personal nature that I want to share with you. The spiritual healing that has taken place in my soul has been a long time coming. God has used the Bible study classes to bring it about, but the revelation of what exactly is being healed didn't come until I was reading the book, So Long Insecurity by Beth Moore.
In April - on Saturday the 24th to be exact - Joy Assembly will be hosting a simulcast of an event taking place in Georgia. It’s a one day conference with well-known speaker and author, Beth Moore. Those of you who have ever done a Beth Moore Bible study know she is a woman who knows the Word of God and loves to share it! She allows you to laugh and cry - sometimes at the same time - while you are digging deeper into the scriptures than you ever thought you could go.
She has recently written a book called So Long, Insecurity. You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us. The simulcast will be based on this book. I am enjoying the on line book club she is hosting. Weekly assignments are given with 2 or 3 questions that will help you delve deep inside and get the most out of the book and hopefully find some healing for the wounds insecurity can bring. Beth’s hope and prayer for this book is that ‘an insecure woman will pick it up, and a secure woman will put it down.’
I have no idea what the simulcast will bring, but I am so hopeful that this note will encourage those of you out there who are debating about attending, to go ahead and make sure you are there. I am going to share a little bit of my heart here and hope that you will be gentle with it. Sometimes the most fragile tissue on a person is that which is just healing. So, bear with me as I share a little of what God is doing in me through this book - and I’m only about 1/3 of the way through it!
Insecurity. I honestly don’t remember a time in my life that I wasn’t insecure. I think my earliest memories are hiding behind someone or something so as not to be noticed. (I know, those of you in Bible study just can not believe that! But it’s true.) I spent most of my life avoiding attention and cameras. To be in the back ground of any group was my main goal. I never felt good enough. No matter what it is I was trying to do, I felt that someone else could surely do a better job than I. For years I fought this battle of competition with an unkown something. What was it that made me feel so insecure? What was it that made me feel I was failing at everything, even when people told me differently?
When I was 6 years old I asked Jesus to come and live in me. I had been talking to my mom and my Uncle Dick (my pastor) for a while about being baptized and having Jesus live in my heart. One day, I knew it was the day. I was baptized shortly after. I remember thinking that finally, I was good enough. I was going to make it to heaven.
In the meantime, I had a little sister who was ill. She had a problem with her heart and at that time, with that particular problem, there was no help for her. Her little heart was going to give out, and soon. That fretful day came and what a sad time we had as a family. Well, even as a church family, as she was just sort of the whole church’s little girl. I remember hearing stories of how special she was. I was told how she was just so special that Jesus wanted her to come and live with Him in Heaven. And wise, oh, how wise she was. She told the nuns in the hospital to take her Jesus off that cross because he wasn’t there anymore. He was risen and was in heaven. What wonderful memories to have. I am so grateful for them. However, for that insecure little 6 year old that I was, it left wounds that only recently came to light.
In reading this book, So Long, Insecurity, Beth asks us to dig into our thoughts and values and see where our ‘prominent false positive’ is. In other words, what is the one thing that you think would make you feel happy, successful, fulfilled? Have you ever thought, “If I had only gotten a college education, I’d have been happier?” Or ‘If only I were skinnier, then I’d truly have it all together.’ If you look at someone else and think, “If only I had her _______, then I’d be successful and more sure of myself”, well that thing is probably your own prominent false positive. It’s that one thing or attribute (physical, mental, or spiritual) that we feel will complete us.
For me, it has always been a feeling of spiritual inadequacy. I have fought the battle of not being good enough for God. After all, if I were truly acceptable spiritually speaking, I would have been the one chosen to go live with Jesus when I was 6, not my sister. She was the holy one. She was the spiritual one. She was the special one. I wasn’t good enough so I had to stay here on earth and deal with life. What lies I believed all my life. What a heavy burden to bear. But I can see it as plain as I am seeing this keyboard in front of me. I see it in me, even at such a young age. It ruled my life. Of course, through the years I have turned to and stood on scriptures and held them dear to my heart. I served out of my need to be good enough. Even as I grew older, I knew that works and service is not what God desires. My spiritual growth was a lot like David’s. I had such a desire to be like God, to be with him. My whole desire was to be what he wanted me to be. But on the journey, I hit every spectrum of human emotion imaginable. I have lived and breathed the Psalms. I have stepped out, hoping that God would be my strength. Ignoring the taunts of satan and those thoughts of inadequacy in my head. I had to stand on scripture.
About a month ago, we were in the middle of discussion in Bible study and I can’t even remember what the topic was. I think it was overcoming the tough things that come in life with out letting our faith take a hit. Anyway, my mom said something concerning my sister’s death that just floored me. I was blown away. She said that she often thought Dee Dee would not have been able to handle being the little sister. That she would have felt she didn’t measure up. Talk about a moment of speechlessness. I was so taken back. Even now, it brings years to my eyes. Not because I would want anyone in anyway to feel inferior or inadequate beside me, but because all my life I have put my little sister on a holy pedestal and held myself to such a high standard because of who I saw her as - the chosen one, the one Jesus himself chose - and I just assumed that was how everyone else in my life viewed it.
How could I have lived almost 35 years carrying this around? And how many other Christians are out there carrying hidden wounds that are so deep they can’t even express them? Or face that they are there?
If you had told me 10 years ago that this was my struggle, I would have thought you were nuts! I just thought that’s the way life was. I wasn’t good enough and that’s the end of it. I would just try a little harder next time. I would just keep at it until I got better. I would just read more, study more, practice more. When all the time, I just needed to stop and let Jesus wash over me and tell me he loves me, he made me, and he would not trade me for anything or anyone.
Psalm 121 tells me He has my life. Psalm 139 tells me He knew me before He formed me in my mother’s womb. He knew my days before even one of them came to be. I look back and I see where His hand was on me, guiding me, protecting me from my own stupidity. He has a plan for me (Jeremiah 29:11) and he will not stop working in me until He is finished (Phil. 1:6). Some days I feel like we are just getting started on this journey, me & God. There is so much to do. So many hurt souls. So many hidden wounds in the body of Christ. That is so my desire. I want to see the women of our church truly do what the song says: Rise up women of the church, come and sing to broken hearts, who can know the healing power, of our awesome king of love.
So, come on! Like the chorus of that song says, Lets ‘shout to the north and the south, sing to the east and the west. Jesus is savior to all. Lord of Heaven and Earth‘.
We have the opportunity of this simulcast to reach out to the women in our lives. Let‘s not leave one wounded, brokenhearted sister lying there in her insecurities. In fact, let‘s not stay there ourselves. I believe there is much more healing about to take place. I know I’m not finished and I so look forward to the rest of the book and the simulcast. Sure, the revelations are at times painful, but then healing and restoration come.
Thank-you for your patience in this long blog. I pray that God will have his way in ministering through these words and will encourage you to consider attending the simulcast. Be blessed, my friend.
Monica
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