Love Me

Perhaps I'm a little emotional today... perhaps. Or maybe I'm just tired, or just being a girl but I started thinking back to high school. I can remember being supremely insecure and not really confident in anything about myself. Even as a teenager, I was always looking for my niche- trying to find that group of friends who would accept me for who I was. The problem is that I didn't know who I was. I spent so much time trying to fit a mold that I thought people were looking for me to fill that I never really took time to find my own shape. And because I was so afraid of what people were thinking about me, I put on masks, facades, one at a time- removing each only for a millisecond to put on the next mask.

I wanted to fit in so badly, as most teenagers do, and I thought if I could just find the right mask, enough people would like me and I would be happy. But I never found that happiness. I only found more and more masks and before long I was so deep in my own masks that I had forgotten what the real me looked like altogether.

These insecurities have followed me into adulthood, unfortunately. I have recently noticed that the cliques from high school didn't end in high school. People are still people- all with deep seeded needs for security and acceptance. Thus, we find the cliques in our churches and neighborhoods. As of late, I have found myself looking for that happiness again- that acceptance- but I noticed to fit in to certain groups, you have to have money, or be funny, successful, or entertaining. You have to have the right job or the right look (none of which I have). So I have often found myself wondering if there will ever be a time when I really do fit in. I have tried wearing the masks, but it's exhausting.

The difference between adulthood and childhood for me, is that now I am able to recognize what I am looking for. We are all designed with a God-shaped hole and are trying to fill it with different things. We all want to be accepted and loved unconditionally. Because the enemy knows this, He attacks this part of each of us, whispering lies like these:

"If you can just lose this weight, then you'll have the look you need."
"If you can just become successful at something... at anything, THEN you'll be accepted."
"Maybe if you were just a bit funnier, or smarter, or knew more people..."
"Maybe if you sang better or wrote better or were more talented in this area..."
"If you can just be friends with these people, THEN you will be happy."


But all of these are just lies, meant to keep us filled with an unquenchable thirst. I struggle with these thoughts when I stop making time to read my Bible and pray. Recognizing this, I opened up my Bible and found this in John 4:13- 13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, 14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus wants to fill the void in our hearts. He wants to be the one we turn to for acceptance and love. He wants to quench this insatiable thirst so we can all stop trying so hard, stop pretending to be who we are not.

I continued reading and found this in Psalm 139:

13 You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.

17 How precious are your thoughts about me,[b] O God.
They cannot be numbered!
18 I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!



Thank you Jesus for loving me so! Thank you for being the one who loves and accepts me just as I am. Thank you for quenching this thirst in me and loving me with your never ending, indescribable love! Thank you for making me, uniquely me- and then finding delight in this creation! In you, and you alone do I put my trust. No longer I.