As I've expressed to my friends and family lately, I'm exhausted. Finding a good balance between school, work, homework, and an attempt at a social life is HARD right now. School is all of a sudden MUCH harder than it was my first two semesters, and I live 30 minutes away from work (which takes an hour out of my day, everyday, that could be spent on my piles of homework).
Because of all of this exhaustion, I began to think I was not cut out for this city and career and all it requires. I began doubting myself in every single way. For those of you who know me very well, I don't come off like the type of girl who has self-confidence issues. But I do. You just can't tell. (I AM an actor, after all).
I've always thought God made me beautiful-as He made all His children beautiful. But personality-wise, emotionally, spiritually, school, etc. I felt like I was just about as average and boring as can be. I never thought good things about myself because I have a paranoia of becoming too arrogant. Once I start to feel proud of myself, the enemy would tell me I was being cocky. So I'd shut that part of me down.
Well lately, that teeny tiny bit of me that had confidence was practically microscopic. I felt like I was going to school and I didn't even know what for anymore. I doubted myself and God's plan for me. I began to even wonder if He even HAD a plan for me anymore.
But then.
One day I was sitting in my musical theatre class and this girl came up and sang "Watch What Happens" from Newsies. (Which is an AMAZING show that I would highly recommend. If you wanna hear the song, click here.) This is a song I've known for quite a while, and I know all the lyrics (and there's a LOT of lyrics in this song.) But for some reason, when Noa went up to sing the song-these lyrics stuck out to me.
"Give life's little guys some ink, and when it dries just watch what happens.Those kids will live and breathe right on the pageand once they're center stage, you watch what happens.And who's there with her camera and her pen as boys turn into menthey'll storm the gates and then just watch what happens when they do."
Well. If that doesn't put it right out in the open, I don't know what does. "Life's little guys" is Jesus. He's writing my story. And I just have to watch what happens when the ink dries! I almost started crying when she was singing this song. I felt so good!
That feeling lasted about 3 days.
And then I remembered how exhausted I was and that amazingly safe and loved feeling I had was gone. Again.
But God didn't stop reminding me that I need to be patient. I was reading my Bible and I stumbled on this:
Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later.-Romans 8:19
Then again on Sunday He gave me another reminder. I missed church, so I was watching Perry Noble online and I began to watch this sermon. In this sermon, Pastor Perry Noble is talking about when Paul was in prison. He casted a demon out of a little girl, then was seized, dragged, attacked, and then thrown into prison. All because the girl's masters wanted the demon in her because it made her tell the future. Then he begins to talk about how Paul and Silas began worshiping the Lord after having the worst day ever.
I began to cry there because I realized that I needed to worship my God in this time of exhaustion I'm still going through. Then I remembered when I posted this. If you don't have time to read it-I'm sum it up. In 2010, a childhood friend of mine died in a terrible car accident. He was only 16. I hadn't seen him or his mom (who worked at my school) in ages. When I went to the funeral, a worship band came up and sang "How Great is Our God" (Derrick was on the praise and worship team). As I sang this song I've known my whole life, I looked over at Derrick's mom and there she was, her hand in the air, praising our God. At her own son's funeral, she was worshiping our Jesus. (this story still makes me cry-I'm crying as I'm typing this).
I used to remind myself of Derrick's mom, Melissa whenever I began to go through something I thought that was hard. But as of lately, I became so consumed in my own problems, I felt like worshiping God wasn't going to fix anything.
I was so wrong.
I've realized that being confident in myself doesn't make my cocky, it means I'm trusting what God has given me, where He's put me, and what He's going to be doing with me. And with that, I need to be praising Him every single step of the way.
I can relate to that sort of pride buffer you described. I recently joined my fellowship's praise team as a singer and even though I thought I did okay and definitely had a good time, I felt so awkward when receiving any compliments about how I sang. I joke about making a joyful NOISE and defame God's gifts in order to appear humble just because embracing them might make me seem confident. However, the more I think about it, confidence isn't a bad thing, it's the attitude of trusting and in this case, it's not me trusting my own ability but trusting that like everything I have, God gave me resources that He wants to use to point people to Christ. The disciples gave Jesus the bread that they had, and He blessed it and gave it back to them for glorifying Him as they shared it with others.
ReplyDeleteMay the Lord bless and keep you 'til He comes again!