Many things have changed in my life the last couple of months. I live by myself now, I am finally going to seminary school, and I am more dependent on myself than ever before. I think this was God's plan all along. As if I could change any of it.
I always wanted to live by myself, but I guess I was too scared, and poor to actually do it with out some help. I had a couple of roommates lined up when Mel was engaged, because I knew that someone would have to take her place. Slowing but surely, I ended up living by myself though. Again, I say that this was God's plan all along, because everything fit right into place. Now, I'm not going to say that there wasn't some growing pains, but in the end.... I really like living by myself. Looking back on to the situation, I really believe that God knew that He really needed me to get to a place, where I was completely dependent on Him for me to grow into the person He wants me to be. I could only grow so much with a twin sister living with me. There would always be apart of me, no matter how much I loved and depended on God, that would always depend on Mel more than anyone else. So this was a good thing. I am living by myself and am just growing everyday into the person God wants me to be. I talk to God so much when I am here alone, I really feel His presence so much more now.
This has been such a learning process. I have learned so much about myself and about the type of person I am. I really am becoming myself now. I would never take this time in my life away. I want to grow as much as I can while I am single. I want to grow and learn in so many areas.
I think right now God is really working with me about my self-confidents. Again, with a twin sister always around, I could usually feel confident because I had another person beside me. But if you stop using a muscle (and in my case that was my individual self-confidents) you will end up loosing it. And so I guess that is what happened.
Most recently I have struggled with being myself around people. Often times, when I leave a group environment, I bash myself so bad because I said something stupid, weird, or inappropriate. I think that is one of the enemies tactics, so to isolate ourselves away from people, and make us feel like we are fighting a loosing battle. Realizing this social battle, I realized that I did not allow God to totally be involved in this situation. I knew that this was an attack by the enemy, but I wasn't doing anything to combat it.
I put God in a box, because I thought that this struggle was for just me to fight. Kind of stupid, but none the less, that is what I did. However, this struggle directly connects to why God wanted me to live by myself. In every situation He wants me to rely on Him, and to grow in the person He wants me to be. God gave me a personality, and a specific one at that. Being just myself is totally okay. It is okay if people like me, and it is okay if they want to hang out with me, and start conversations with me. Being self-conscious can and will destroy all of what God wants us to be. It can bind us so tight, that we forget who we were, and the qualities about ourselves that God has gifted us with. This can not stay with us, for we will never be who God intended us to be.
How do we fix this? Well first I think that we should learn who God is, and what He can do in us. This can be done through prayer and studying His word. Ephesians 1: 13 says "..... You put your faith in Christ and were given the promised Holy Spirit to show that you belong to God. The Spirit also makes us sure that we will be given what God has stored up for his people." Second, we should rebuke any negative thought that we know the Lord has no part in. It is one thing to have the Lord show us our wrong in certain situations, but it is another when we are trapped in a spiritual warfare with our enemy telling us lies. Third, never give up on one and two!!!!!! God will over power the negative!
To grow in God, is to learn what amazing things He has for us. I can not stress enough, how being self-conscious can destroy any possibility for us to realize what has been given to us by God. I do understand that we should all be humble and reverent to the fact that we all have faults. I am not saying that we shouldn't. I believe that God gives us those understanding to help us in communicating with people around us, and to understand what we need to work on personally and things like that. However, I believe that in most cases when we are self-conscious, it only hinders God's process in our hearts. Being self-conscious can also lead us down a path of fear, doubt, burden thoughts, and anxiety. This is never good when trying to be all that we can be in Christ Jesus.
In all of this being said, this is what I am going through right now. It isn't the biggest thing that is going on in my life right now. However, it is something that I can definitely get a hold of and work on. As a single girl, it is easy sometimes to struggle with self-confidents. But it doesn't need to be. God will not remain in a box, that He doesn't even fit in anyways. He is so much bigger than anything we could ever imagine. That alone gives me hope in all things.
