This series of blogs that are being posted from China are a blend of postings from our month at our location and our week spent in Debrief, I will try and keep you informed as best as I can as to when the blog was written because I am typing them out of order, because I have so much to share but don’t know where to start, so I write the blogs as they come to me.
Written at the start of Month 8 Debrief in Beijing, China:
I’m still insecure. 8 months down … 3 months to go… and I still feel lost. How can I be confident if I’m still looking at the mirror, straightening my dull curly hair to some state of stick straight psuedo-perfection, and using the minimal make up I have to try and conceal the wear and tear of the past 8 months? I put on my least ruined shirt and my scarf that helps me look more like the rest of the women, even though I know I can’t pull off the look the way they do. Bethany Dillon says it well, “I feel skin deep … I can’t keep their attention … I just want to be worthy of love and beautiful.”
I was in China this past month, plagued with spider bites and before it became the new normal to wake up with multiple swollen red bites, I was concerned when the first and worst bite appeared, It was red, swollen, hot to the touch … for fear that it may be an allergic reaction, our contact’s wife gave me some liquid Children’s Benadryl to try. It didn’t reduce the swelling, but sometime that night under the influence of Children’s
Benadryl, it did reduce my insecurity, at least temporarily. For a few days I found a confidence that I’ve rarely ever felt. I held my head a little higher and I walked to and from the center with a bit more poise and a bit more realized identity.
I can’t believe that was me a few days before Month 8 Debrief.
Somewhere on the train between our ministry site and arriving at the hostel in Beijing, something changed. Actually, if I’m being honest with myself … my confidence was probably a bit conditional anyways, based on my own terms. I’m pretty sure it became less authentic confidence and more pretend after being called out as “the outsider,” or something along those lines. There’s something a bit confidence bruising about hearing other people confirm what you’ve been struggling with your whole life.
Anyways, coming into debrief with that weighing down my mind has been a struggle, because I feel that I can’t control how the squad perceives me so I decide to try and control everything I can which means here I am thinking straight hair and make up will make me more accepted, less invisible, and worthy of love. I guess even traveling the world can’t change the natural inclination I have to be insecure.
Sometime this next three months I am going to have to learn to choose unwavering confidence. I wonder what that will look like …
Stay tuned for another blog in this series of China blogs about how God shook up my thinking and gave me the confidence to begin stepping out of who I used to be and stepping into who I can become …
