"At the beginning of March of this year, I was fully aware that something was off with me. I would cry without prompting. I would take things people said to me and believe there was an underlying meaning to it. I stopped dreaming. I stopped creating. I was so discouraged. I did not understand what was going on with me. I was seeking God, reading my Bible, praying, worshipping - all the things I knew I needed to be doing to survive whatever this was.
I had spent months planning my dream wedding with my dream guy. I had spent months preparing to move in with him after our wedding then embark on a four month trip to Africa with him. Then it was all stripped away. It was so hard, like crying myself to sleep for days kind of hard. I do not deal with mourning - I like to skip it, ignore it, and move on. I almost feel guilty for mourning when I know who God is and what He has done for me. But a dear friend of mine gave me a reality check and said to me, “Julia, do you know that the Lord does not expect you to be okay with this, but He does want to go through the hardness of it with you?” The Lord used that moment to convict me in so much grace and truth.
Well, everything was stripped away from me. But guess what, I was still left with Jesus. He never left me. I do not have to grow weary that He ever will. And then the Lord started to do heart surgery with me. He showed me that at some point I stopped watering myself with truth. I started putting my confidence in the wrong things. I allowed the enemy to have a field day with my past insecurities that the Lord has already freed me from. Yes, I was reading my Bible, praying, and worshipping - but I was not letting the words of eternal life seep into my bones. There has to be a head and a heart connection. I could know every word in the Bible but if I don’t believe it in my heart then I am reading it for knowledge rather than for an increase of faith.
Girls especially wrestle with confidence, insecurities, and comparison. Like Eve, we get tricked up with the question, “Did God really say that?” He did. He is the original Creator. He did create you in His image. (Genesis 1:27). That verse gets repeated so often, but do you actually believe it when you look into the mirror? There was no point in when God created all things that He compared what He designed. He said it was all good. Very good. Paul talks to the Corinth church about comparison because like us today they liked to compare each other's roles in the church! Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-31. We all are in one body - the body of Christ. And with confidence, we get to choose where our confidence is. So if it’s in anything but the Lord, we know we will crumble at the question, “Did God really say that?”
Water yourself. I began a journal entry titled, “The Lord’s Love Song to Me.” I started writing down His words because they are life and in order to grow, I need to speak those over me daily. And He’s taken away the pressure. To have it all together. To do all the right things. But to just simply worship Him for who He is and believe it with every fiber in me. If you water yourself, He will increase your faith. So when He calls you into the stormy waters of your calling, you won’t fall into the waves. But you will keep your eyes steady on Jesus and proclaim boldly the truth of His word at any wave that comes your way." -Julia Symonds
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