I'm procrastinating - So Long Insecurity Week 2

I think this gets the award on my blog as the most real post ever.  Well, most real, ugly, embarrassingly immature post ever.  And it's a long one.

Here are Beth's questions for chapters 3 and 4.
1. Based on Chapter Three, what tends to be your own "Prominent False Positive"?  
By "prominent false positive," in short, Beth means something we assume (that if we had it) would make us totally secure in ourselves.  As far as a prominent false positive, I really don't know what that would be for me.  I know every woman probably struggles with insecurities, and I know the grass always SEEMS greener on the other side.  Being one of those people that appears confident to those around me (yet second guesses myself left and right), I would assume that others who appear confident might not be either. 


2. What is the challenge stated at the very end of Chapter Three?  
My challenge (personalized) is "to let the healthy, utterly whole, and completely secure part of  me increasingly overtake my earthen vessel until it drives my every emotion, reaction, and relationship."

Praise the Lord that He is in the business of working miracles, because that is what that sounds like to me.

3. Based on Chapter Four, what Biblical figure (or statement about him/her) resonated with you most and why?  
This week has been hard for me.  I keep thinking if I put off answering this question in writing, that maybe my answer will change to a less horrible one. :blush: (I keep reading the chapter over again hoping that maybe one of the other characters' stories will resonate more loudly so I can use that answer instead.)  But here goes nothin':  I relate most to Sarah, Hagar, Leah and Rachel.  All of them put together, because root of their struggles was jealousy.  I had to define jealous to see if that's really what it is that I'm feeling.  Here's what I found and how I mean jealous here: Fearful or wary of being supplanted; apprehensive of losing affection or position.

I struggle with jealousy.

Ick.  It doesn't get any uglier than that.  In comparison to these women, mine doesn't have anything to do with Robert loving another woman.  I don't say that flippantly as I know many woman are hurting desperately for exactly that reason and my heart hurts for you.  I, on the other hand, struggle with the "in" crowd.  Embarrassingly enough, Robert has pinned me on this one a number of times, but I've tried (unconvincingly, I know) to explain it away.  Honestly, I don't think I realized this for what it was until I've had to look at it squarely in the face.

I have never been part of the "in" crowd.  I was too much of a prude to be cool in school, too afraid of trouble to be the class clown, too average looking (with too many zits) to be any sort of beauty contest winner, too average to win any vocal contests.  Sooooooooo many times in my life I have been in conversations with people who talk to me until someone more appealing (better looking, more interesting, more popular, more animated, funnier, you get the idea) comes along.  And I mean this literally and figuratively.

Interestingly enough, I don't want the more appealing characteristic "they" have.  I am not jealous of the looks, voice, personality, money, like-ability factor "they" have.  As immature as it sounds, I am jealous of the attention they get because of it.  I think it might be that I want to be that appealing, interesting, preferred, ... with the package I've got.  I want to be appealing enough just as I am.  I know God chose the package He put together in me for many reasons, and I'm okay with how He made me.  I think my struggle comes in when I face the reality that while I know God loves me, and quite frankly older people love me for who I am (I've always felt very safe spending time with people who are older than I), my peers prefer someone else.  You just don't even know how scary it feels to write this down where you can read it.  It's hard to not want to go crawl in a hole and cry as I write this, but that's cheating!  I committed to do this thing.

This jealousy is the root of all sorts of insecurity in my heart.  It manifests itself in fears of many things, the most prominent one I realize even as I'm typing this is a fear that Robert will choose someone else one day.  That the person with whom I have shared the most and been most vulnerable, to whom I've committed my life on Earth and given my heart, will one day decide that another woman is more appealing and choose her - for five minutes or a lifetime.

Not sure how I type a sigh of relief.  Processing something like this that drives actions and behaviors of mine every day is kind of big.  And I'm praying that the acknowledgement of it will allow me to open up the the Lord for His healing.  What an opportunity I have before me!

More on this another day... I've got to pray about and chew on this awhile.  And maybe I need to go back to question 1.


ETA: More on this subject here.