Everybody's Insecure

I've always felt "out of sync" with the rest of the world.  Not smart enough.  Not thin enough.  Not pretty enough.  Not clever enough.  Not even loved enough.  And for years I used those "out of sync" feelings to fuel my desire to eat.  Since I felt I could never attain acceptableness (much less perfection) then why even try?

I looked out at the world through the filter of my hurts and insecurities, and thought,  "Nobody understands what I've been through.  I'm all alone.  I think I'll call Domino's." 

Then, slowly, I began to see that maybe--just maybe--one or two other people also felt unloved and unacceptable to the world.  And as I got outside of my own hurt feelings enough to listen to theirs, I began to understand that we all suffer from feeling insecure in the world.  Even the best looking, thinnest, most accomplished people I know feel insecure about something.  Everybody carries a sadness around inside that is difficult to share with someone else. 

Realizing this takes away one more of my reasons to medicate myself with food.  But more important, even as I write this, I see what part of the problem is.  We feel insecure IN THE WORLD.  If we look for security there, we will never find it.  The world is a cruel and unforgiving place.  Even if we could meet what we think are the world's standards, those standards are an ever shifting, changing hodge-podge of popular opinion, designed to keep us off-balance and always questioning ourselves.

We need to look for security in a place where the standards never change.  Something we can count on.  You know what I'm going to say.  The only true security comes from God, and from coming close to Him through His Son, Jesus.  The ironic thing is that God knows we're all screwed up...that we say the wrong things, and make mistakes, and that we forget to come to Him with all our insecurities.  He knows EVERYTHING about us.  But He loves us anyway!  When I stop and think about that, the tension inside me simply melts away.  Which makes me think of a song:

What a friend we have in Jesus,
All our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry
Everything to God in prayer!
Oh, what peace we often forfeit,
Oh, what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry
Everything to God in prayer!

 ¹ I lift up my eyes to the mountains-
      where does my help come from?
  ² My help comes from the LORD,
   the Maker of heaven and earth.
                               from Psalm 121