Imposter Syndrome: the persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills
I have struggled with this for quite some time. Never feeling as if I am deserving of whatever good thing I have received. Above I am pictured at the end of a 2650 mile hike. Feeling like I am an imposter. No way I’m a “real thru hiker” despite taking each and every step continuously from the Mexican border to the Canadian border I was convinced that I was worthy of being called a thru-hiker.
One can imagine that being accepted to the World Race has brought up a new wave of feeling like an imposter. I’m not the kind of person that should be doing this. Asking for support? Asking for prayer? Who do I think I am?
I feel silly asking for anything; Scared that the people who decide to support me will find out I’m a messy human who is worthy only because God has made it so. My efforts are futile and my weaknesses plenty. I am keenly aware of my shortcomings. Overwhelmed and bordering on drowning in the current flood of mercies and love that God has seen fit to allow in my life at this time. It is important in this time that I fall deeper in love with the one who saved me and is continuously making me clean and whole. The depths of His love are vast. It is not in my power to explore them alone, He guides me and takes me into their depths. He will allow my breath, and He will sustain my being through the profundity of His love.
So here I am. Feeling like a fraud. And knowing full well that I am. Being found out as a fraud is the best thing that could happen. It is an opportunity to sit with another broken messy human and share how God makes beautiful things out of our brokenness. How he provides in abundance when we are undeserving, how He loves deeply and without measure. How He gives His children good things. And how He allows us in His presence because He loves us and has chosen us, despite us.
Will you join me in praying? Praying that I use this time wisely and that the coming months would not be lost to the hurricane of “not good enough” feelings that seem to have been stirred by this season of my life. This season in which I am being blessed immeasurably. That in preparing for this exciting journey I do not forget the people in front of me. That in preparing I come to a deeper understanding of who I am in Christ, and that I feel like less of a fraud, or that God will use the fraud feeling for His glory somehow.
