If there is one thing I know after nearly twenty-two years on this earth, it’s that I am a self-doubting champion.
It all began in Elementary school when I realized that my best friend was beautiful. It was in that same moment I discovered that when I compared my own beauty to hers, my brain concluded that I fell short.
Since that fall my own self-doubt and lack of self-esteem have been the bane of my existence. Feelings that I just could not shake led to eating disorders and an inner dialog that would make you cringe. The things that I’ve told myself over the years would make the hairs on your neck stand to attention. The times when I’ve stood in front of a mirror with tears rolling down my cheeks, gritting my teeth as I literally smacked myself on the face out of disgust would make your jaw drop.
I’m being explicit here because I want you to understand the depth of self-hatred I possessed.
When I was seventeen years old, I re-entered the church world on a regular basis for the first time since my childhood. People were telling me that Jesus loved me and wanted me and desired me. I was sold. I wanted a relationship with this God turned man, because I was exhausted from trying to fight a losing battle.
I left for El Salvador for nine months to explore and develop a sense of who God is and if He’s really all that He seems. Even throughout my time there I struggled with image. I lost fifteen pounds the first half of my time there because I was restricting my food intake. I began finding my worth in what a boy thought of me. I was losing control again. Maybe I never really had it. After that year I continued to allow this boy’s opinion of me to hold an unhealthy weight in my life, and it ruined us.
I once again found myself alone and wondering about my worth.
God wooed me that following year. He taught me so much about who I am in Him, and even more about how good He is no matter what the world or even my own self tells me.
I began the World Race knowing that God was going to shake me up, because I was asking Him to. I wanted more for my life than constant doubt and insecurity. I wrote a blog recently about my journey in the past six months involving self-image and God causing a slow shift in my thought patterns. This journey would prove to hold many more twists and turns than I thought.
When we arrived in Thailand, I discovered a new meaning of the word hot. It was so unbelievably warm at all hours of the day that I thought I was slowly losing my mind. Trying to escape the heat became my priority, and things like physical and spiritual health were pushed to the wayside. I slowly began adopting thought patterns that God had so tirelessly worked with me to break and reform. I was in a leadership position and avoided confronting myself out of a desperate ploy to seem like I had it together.
I found myself in month six in Mae Sot, Thailand and my newfound confidence was slowly bleeding out of me via the festering wound in my heart I refused to acknowledge. I was losing myself. Losing the parts of me I loved and losing sight of my purpose in this season of life.
Fast forward to month six debrief in Chiang Mai, Thailand and I was slowly breaking apart inside. Burnt out doesn’t do my state of mind justice. I had beautiful talks with people from my squad whom I love and adore. It helped loosen the hold this doubt had on me, but it was still there lurking beneath the surface of false optimism and forced smiles.
One night during sessions at debrief, I was filled with the Holy Spirit and experienced wave after wave of laughter and release. Of my issues and fear of never finding love, God said to me, “LET. IT. GO”. Over and over in my head He whispered those three words along with compliments and truths and admiration.
But I still wouldn’t listen.
In Siem Reap, Cambodia I found myself walking next to a friend at Angkor Wat and couldn’t speak a word. My lack of self-confidence and increased doubt had a choke-hold on me and I was deathly afraid to say anything at all. It was forced and unnatural. It was everything but the Taylor I’ve grown to be and love this year.
We arrived to ministry in Batambang and my misery reached it’s climax during a one on one with Charmagne. My heart was eager to catch up with her and talk about how she was doing, but I ended up in tears of self-pity instead.
“I’m burnt out, and I’m over all of this”.
I had completely lost touch with the call to greatness that God had placed on my life when He led me to the Race. I could see reason with my logical brain, but my heart was incapable of grasping it.
Today I stayed by myself while the team attended church, and I hashed it out with the creator of the universe.
God why am I not hearing from you?
“Because you’re not talking to me”.
Ouch.
God I just want to experience more of you and see manifestations of the Holy Spirit. I want to be inspired.
“You’re not asking for it”.
Double ouch.
Every complaint I took to God, He revealed the truth that in neglecting myself, I had been neglecting my relationship with Him. My heart was far from the truth because I had allowed myself to stray far from Him. Self-doubt had taken precedence over everything else, and I had lost myself in the raging sea of ties to my past that bound me.
“Even in our darkest moments of sin and self-centeredness, God still loves us. No matter what. And the moment he sees an inkling of repentance, he goes crazy. He smothers us in his embrace. He calls for the robe, the ring, the sandals. He throws a party in our honor. That is grace.” (Judah Smith, “Jesus Is___”)
I am a silly woman sometimes. My best friends from home will gladly attest to that. It’s when my silliness bleeds into heavier things that it becomes dangerous. I lost sight of the incorruptible grace that my Abba Father offers me, and it ruined me. Talking with Him today felt like I inhaled grace and exhaled the filth and lies and toxic mess I had been clinging to for months.
I want to encourage you with this, “I think guilt and self-condemnation are the source of most complexities in our faith. We get so introspective and self-absorbed that our failures become more real to us than Jesus. It’s not healthy. It’s depressing. It’s morbid. It’s selfish”. However, “If Jesus wrote in your yearbook, I think you would be blown away by what he really thinks about you. I think you would live differently because Jesus is crazy about you. He is obsessed with you. He is proud of you”. (Judah Smith, “Jesus Is___”)
I’ve found that when I take my gaze off of Jesus, it more often than not falls onto myself. My eyes begin picking apart every detail and I end up shredded and broken at my own hand. I choose to rest in the grace that Jesus offers me unconditionally. I choose to live a life of freedom. I choose to embrace the call that is on my life, the one that only I can answer. I choose to find rest.
I choose to be at peace with God, and with myself.
