#bravevulnerably

This post is about me braving some of my insecurities in life that I, myself, without denial, is fully aware of – and braving enough to the extent of sharing it to you.

When do you feel most loved by others? It’s a question we normally hear.

How about this. When do you show love for yourself? A rare question you would encounter.

Let’s skip answering the first one. Because the Five Love Languages and many other online tests out there help us to find the answers easily and quickly. Although it’s not 100% guaranteed, we kind of still believe them. Don’t we? 😊

Relating the second question, for me, it’s the simple moments like right now – typing and constructing this post coz I get to know a little more about myself. I get to realize and reflect many things and actions I have done.

I write so there is something to look back to when I lost track of myself. I write to get back to myself. I write to reminisce the thoughts and feelings I once had. I write to find these little moments God uses in disguise to be home –again. I write to remember these little moments of extraordinary love He has all this time for me. I write to remember – HIM.

Every start of the year, I have a habit of releasing a post either about what I learned on the previous year that has gone by or what I am hoping to do more with the year that just welcomed us. I also have this hashtag I usually incorporate in my years that I annually seek God for that I treat as my “themed” Word such as #DanceFearlessly2019, #WaitPatiently2020. Better late than never they say, so hello #BraveVulnerably2021! These hashtags are quite important to me coz it’s my reminder that will serve me for the coming 365 days awaiting me every year. It’s like a magic word to open presents or a secret passcode to closed doors that God has specifically prepared for me to open.

What’s your hashtag this year? It may not be necessarily as the literal hashtag. It may have been other things so long as it’s between you and God. Pray about it. It’s never too late until 2021 is over, you know. 😊

Today, I had the opportunity to have some catch up with a good friend and also a sister in Christ. I tell you now, I was never fond of high-key maintenance friendship. I always stay lowkey as lowkey as it can be when it comes to my friends. But I am quite known to my friends as high-key person as possible in social media (in ig to be exact), funny isn’t it? You may be wondering how did I know about this. I have heard most of them telling me (non-verbatim), “even if we don’t really talk, I feel so updated *laughs*”. When I first heard this, honestly, I was really offended. Right there, it hit me, I asked myself. “Why was I offended to begin with?”

After much debate with myself and countless seeking for guidance and wisdom from the Lord. These I conclude:

1.      I was never accustomed of hearing any comments and encouragements from what I do even more to what I post. Maybe that’s why my top love language is affirmation. I feel loved and appreciated when I am being affirmed – which is very very rare. Thus, to me, words are powerful. You can either win me over or hurt me with it.

2.      I am so used with not being in a spotlight. So, hearing those words made me feel like “girl, you’re sharing too much of yourself in social media” – with this, it later became my insecurity. Because I also truly believe that not everything about us should be shared publicly. I thought, “lorz, you should really learn this the hard way”.

Hearing those words repetitively especially from friends that I don’t regard as close ones made me become so careful with what I post from then on. There came lots of moments I hesitated, stopped myself from doing what I actually love doing because of these few words said to me. From insecurity it became my so-called “struggle”. A one from the many.

In the catch up I had with my friend; she finally spilled the question I’ve been unconsciously waiting from someone to ask me about. For her, it takes a lot of courage to share what she’s going through. Her exact words to me were,

“You actually seem so comfortable sharing your journey with everyone. How do you do that?”

We all have different struggles in different seasons in life. My friend’s strong suit is keeping things private while it’s the other way around for me. It really is a struggle for me to keep things lowkey. That’s why I admire my friend in this aspect. It’s something I have a hard time doing. Well, a struggle is called a struggle for a reason, right?

But you know later on, I learned that every time I tried overcoming this particular struggle of mine and failing to do so, a part of me feels like being shredded from my character and it doesn’t feel like me in a way – which led me again to really asked myself about it, “Why?” Why I feel that way. I’m good at keeping friendships lowkey. I’m the type of person who meet friends once in few years and that’s the only time I would pour out all my piled-up happenings in life through the years that we’ve missed each other’s stories. Whenever I wanted to rant from something, I’m so good with keeping it to myself because that’s exactly my coping mechanism to lessen the stress – to not give too much attention when the situation is not in my favor, to divert it to doing something else when I can’t solve it any longer. That’s when I figured, sharing my journey with everyone through social media became my outlet ever since – that somehow, I am being heard, aside from my normal silent rants to God. There are really some things in life we have had to learn the hard and painful way, as for me, it started as an offense but ended as my defense.

Shredding is good if it comes from God. But shredding yourself to please people to the point of being someone else you are not; you’re not doing yourself any favor nor God wants that. If you’re not trampling anyone’s life and your intention is pure with your actions, continue doing what makes you happy. Why stop yourself doing what you actually love doing? Psalm 7:1-5 says,

“Lord my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, or they will tear me apart like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me. Lord my God, if I have done this and there is guilt on my hands – if I have repaid my ally with evil or without cause have robbed my foe – then let my enemy pursue and overtake me; let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust.”

Let God do His job of judging people. Let Him be your shield, a righteous God who probes minds and hearts, who makes the righteous secure and saves the upright in heart. God knows your heart more than anyone, more than you ever know. Let this truth be your peace.

When His truth finally struck deeply into my heart and I went back to being who I actually am, whenever I come across with statements like “. . .I feel so updated with your life”, it now comes to me as a compliment and my heart does a little jump inside me. In the future, when someone shows up to ask me again, “why are you so comfortable sharing your journey with everyone?”. With all my heart in it, I would tell them again this story with delight and joy, braving vulnerably, along with the lessons it taught me.

To tell you the truth, I feel so much alive sharing my journey. You don’t know how much joy it brings me doing this. I always feel life is so worth to live every moment of it whenever I get the chance to share my wins — and losses, and everything in-betweens. I always love that feeling of actually having a part/role I get to play in this very massive world we live in, knowing I’m just a speck of dust in God’s perspective. On the other hand, I get anxious whenever I try to cease myself. It’s in this refraining when anxiety starts to creep in me. And I never wanna experience that again. Ever. And this, my friend, is the side of my story.

When you learn not to mind what other people think about you, you become comfortable sharing any highs and lows. After all, in the eyes of God, we all are equal. What really matters is how God sees us. And by that, if God accepted us as we are in our messiness, no mess can ever take His eyes away from you. When God sacrificed His one and only Son – Jesus Christ – on the Cross, He meant every word when He said “I know your worth, my child. My Son paid dearly for every ounce of it.”

I know in my heart, in God’s time, you too will become vulnerably brave in the midst of your pain. I hope that when your designated time comes, you too will choose to be selfless in sharing your painful trials, not only the victories you’ve won, letting God use your hurtful experiences too as a light of hope for others; as this could be someone else’s comfort and strength.

May your 2021 be filled only with God-sufficient days!

Dear my fellow warrior prince/princess, may you learn to be not intimidated or insecure of what you’re going through. I pray that we all continue to struggle and come out stronger than we already are. Struggles are proof that we are all human capable of mistakes and failures yet are also proofs that we are able to grow and bloom beautifully in time by God’s grace.

Brave vulnerably 2021, yes? Yes!