I got to go see Beth Moore live via satellite last Saturday at a local church. I'm still trying to process what all she talked about, but I have to say it was a moving thing for me. I've read some of her books but have never heard her speak. And even though she was down in Hotlanta, at what looked to be a GIANORMOUS church, and I was up here in Virginny with about 100 women, she was easy to listen to and connect with. As a child born in 1967, technology still amazes me. I mean, we had a black and white TV till I was like ten, and I didn't have a TV with a remote until I got married. Yeah, I'm the mom that is already driving my kids crazy with stories about having to wait a whole HOUR for a TV dinner to cook. I'm also the crazy lady who thinks the invention of the microwave started society on a terrible downhill slide into that awful place known as instant gratification/no patience land, but I digress.
So there is Mrs. Moore on the 20 foot screen, hanging from the ceiling, being beamed live (by a SATELLITE...IN OUTER SPACE...I'M A NERD), to 300,000 women from Alaska to the Bahamas! All to talk to us about insecurity. Oh I needed to hear what she had to say. I haven't even read the book yet "So Long Insecurity" but am eagerly awaiting it's arrival via USPS in the next couple of days.
As the youngest of four girls, I learned early on how to be heard, how to get attention. That has been both a blessing and a curse, depending on the situation. Another trick I learned over the years was how to put on a facade. I doubt many people who know me would use the word insecure to describe me. Immature? Sure. Incorrigible? Maybe. Obnoxious? Hmm, depends on the person being asked. But insecure? Nah. Yet I am full on, eat up with it. I worry and fret about everything- about me and around me- not being good enough. And seriously, I don't think there are too many of us out here on this globe that don't share at least a little of this insecurity stuff.
You don't even have to open your eyes to see it EVERYWHERE. On billboards, magazine ads, TV commercials, TV shows, movies, at schools, in neighborhoods, in families, even at church sometimes, we are bombarded with what someone else has decided is the "Ideal" or the "Standard" for what "We" are supposed to be, wear, think, drive, sing, look like even. And if we don't meet these unwritten, often unspoken, always changing guidelines, the insecurity creeps in.
Beth really hits home with tying in insecurity to unbelief, to bondage, to something that absolutely keeps us from God. Boy, does that resonate with my soul! I highly recommend you log on her site and read her blog. Or buy the book. The DVD of the telecast will be available in July. Yeah, I'll be ordering that, even though I got to hear it the first time. Some things get better and sink in the second (or third or tenth) time around. If anyone reads this and either got to see her speak or has read the book, puhlease, email me/comment/carrier pigeon me and tell me how (if) it affected you and what changes you are making to kick insecurity to the curb.
For me there are so many blocks, boulders really, mountains even, on my spiritual walk because of my insecurities. But I am working on it. Daily, hourly, minutely, secondly. God's abundant grace can and will release me from my insecurities. Even if it is only one cell at a time. I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength. Amen.
