“You talk too much”
“Sometimes it seems you talk just to fill the air space”
“You are very strong with your body language and stares. I always know when you have something to say”
Feedback is one of my favorite things about the race but it is something that I struggle with. I am a people pleaser by nature, and when something is said to me as constructive feedback it resonates deeply in me.
That may seem like a good thing but what happens when you wrap your identity up in it.
I feel like a swinging pendulum. When I “feel” like I am being myself I am told I am too much. Then the opposite happens. I retract and just say nothing.
Where is the balance?
Where is me?
Who am I?
Before the race I would have told you that I was feeling very grounded in my identity as a child of the Most High God. What happened?
I feel broken. I feel confused. I feel lost. I feel uncertain.
So this is my declaration of truth. I no longer will let people and their feedback define who I am or how I act. I still want feedback, because I am on a journey of sanctification, but I won’t let my identity be defined by the those things. They are meant to be the iron sharpening iron NOT the iron changing the iron into nickel.
Refining comes from God. Growth comes from the help of each other.
I am a Child of the Most High God.
I am a Daughter of the King.
I am washed in the blood of my Savior.
I am creative, beautiful, confident.
I am Beloved.
“If you live off a man’s compliments, you’ll die from his criticism.” – Cornelius Lindsey
“Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another.” – Proverbs 27:17
