Fear, something we all have and all don't know what to do with. It can be fear of anything from heights to people and everything in between. Our fears can either cripple us or make it so we want to conquer them. In my life fear was holding me back, the thoughts would run through my head of what people would think or what they would say about me. I was worried about not being liked and not fitting in, and I often found myself believing the lie that if someone really knew where I came from and who I had to be they wouldn't want to be around me anymore. This fear is still so real to me that even now doing something that I absolutely love doing (aka writing) is scary. I mean I write more than some people know and keep it all locked away on my computer. My dreams, what I'm overcoming, who I was, who my family was, words that I wish every girl could hear and know to be true, even letters all of this written and never seen.
The thing about fear is we can work through that. God will give us the strength to look straight at the fear and start overcoming it. He will be there beside us giving us the peace and being the rock to hold on to. For me I allowed the fear of rejection and my past to shake my confidence and life. I found myself having a list of things I didn't want to be defined by, like preacher's kid, a girl with "daddy issues", someone who had lost their parent, a victim, or depressed. I knew that I just wanted to be able to be me and not have to fear. I have been through things I would never wish on my worst enemy for awhile I focused on what I had lost. I would run when I felt like maybe people were getting to close or that I started feeling like I couldn't be myself anymore. But I realized that I couldn't always run, and that I had to choose happiness. I mean my name is Joy.... yet I wasn't happy with what I had seen my life become. I was just so used to people in and out of my life that I could keep them at a distance. God started putting people in my life that I would feel completely comfortable around. Several broke through and I finally realized I could be me. It's not always easy I still find myself feeling that am going to be rejected, or a fear of what people will think. But I found that although I have fears I have a faith that my fears can't hold me back from who I am. A faith that God will be right there with me giving me the strength I need to be me. For when I stop letting the fear of what others think determine my actions I find the happiness and the joy throughout my life.
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