It Just Is

One day, you will feel God tugging on your heart about something, and you won't really know what it is, why He is tugging at your heart, or how He plans to use what He is guiding you towards. That is where I sit tonight as I write this. For about a month or so, I have had this tugging at my heart that I know is God. I can't explain it, because to explain it would make it too life like, too human like, too simple. It is bigger than that. It is stronger than that. It just is.

For the past year, I have realized that I struggle with insecurity more that I ever have before. This might surprise some people because I can come across as a very strong, independent, confident person. For the most part, I do believe in myself and feel as though I am a pretty level-headed person. Many of my friends say I am very even-keeled. I am never really up or really down. I do believe that over the past few years, I have lost some of that confidence, some of that strength, and a lot of that security.

Honestly, I think the insecurity stems from the fact that I love too much. I don't want to mess up. I want to do everything I can to make my girls happy, to teach them, to instill values within them, to prepare them for what is ahead. I want the very best for all three of my girls. I want to be a great listener for my friends, a great supporter, an encourager, a person who is trustworthy. I want to be a loving wife, a friend to my husband, an encourager for him and his number one fan. I want my parents, my siblings to know how deeply they are loved. In that place of loving others deeply, I often find myself looking at others to see how they are raising their children, what decisions they are making, what type of friend they are, wife they are, and mother they are. How are they showing their love? Are they doing it the way I do, or are they doing it differently?

I recently discovered that in order to gain security within myself, I would criticize those around me when they loved others differently than I did. I might not speak my criticism, I might not voice it out loud, but I would think it. I would analyze them, analyze their decisions, critique their every move. Through those thoughts and perceptions, I found that I was no longer loving them well at all. In fact, I was doing the exact opposite of loving them well. I was judging them. I was criticizing them, and in the process, I was alienating myself from everything that was wonderful about them. Satan used my desire to love others well to create a very bitter, insecure, judgmental heart.

Slowly, God has shown me that He wants more for me than that. I cannot possibly love anyone perfectly because I am not perfect. I cannot possibly be a perfect, loving wife, daughter, sister, friend or mother all the time because I am a sinner. I am flawed. However, even though I am flawed, God can shine through me and use me in other peoples' lives. I have come to a place where I can see that now. I can see that I need Him to love others well. I don't need to look around me to learn how to do that. I need to look to Him. In doing that, my heart slowly has become less critical, less judgmental, less bitter, less insecure.

This is the journey I am on. This is why I love to write. Through my writing, I have realized that I want more for myself, more for my family and friends. I want to love others deeply, but I want them to see Christ's love shine from within me, not my love. My love is imperfect, ugly, sinful, but Christ's love is perfect. I hope that Christ can use me to be a great mother, wife, daughter, sister and friend. And I hope that those around me will see that it isn't me that is loving them well at all. It is so much more than that. It just is.